Thursday, October 25th 2018 PSA

Shifting roles in academic communities mean that boundaries between mentors and mentees are in continuous flux. We represent a dynamic mentoring relationship between a senior faculty member, a senior doctoral student and a junior graduate student/recent alumnus. Our relationship is characterized by shifting subject positions and boundaries over a five-year period of working together, and we have now added a new layer to this history as SoTL co-researchers. Our strong relationship is an indication of how fluidity in mentorship may provide the foundation for supportive and inclusive micro-communities which allow space for the “significant conversations” (Roxå & Martensson, 2009) key to moving learning cultures forward.

In addition to “significant conversations” (Roxå & Martensson, 2009), we draw on Roxå, Martensson and Alveteg (2011)’s network approach to teaching and learning cultures and Lave and Wenger’s understanding of communities of practice (1998) to analyze our relationship. We critically explore the typically hierarchical nature of academic mentorship relationships, and ask how we can acknowledge all members as meaningful agents? We propose that by identifying all subject positions in a multivalent mentoring relationship as launching points for innovation and growth, we can establish mutually fulfilling relationships that positively impact the success of mentors and mentees within an academic micro-community. We contend that such relationships can in turn influence the teaching and learning practices of a wider learning culture by creating lasting moments of engagement, recognition, and insight.

In this workshop, we model our complex relationship using a constellation-mapping technique, and then call upon participants to reflect on their own subject positions in multi-level mentoring relationships. Ultimately, we engage participants in a discussion of generative strategies for fortifying existing academic micro-communities, and/or facilitating the development of new mentorships which have the potential to be lasting sites of meaningful academic discourse.

There are many benefits of student involvement and various ways to involve them. To be involved in an environment where your contribution is of significance in the bigger picture is motivational and therefore important for students in a learning perspective (Sørensen et al., 1998). Starting up a project on their own accord can be challenging for students, as student life is temporary and knowledge of which opportunities are available can be scarce. However, if given the chance, many students will stand up to the occasion and contribute if they find the task meaningful. There are several factors which indicate a good project where students can contribute and be a positive force: institutional support, autonomy, meaningful collaboration and encouragement (Freeman et al., 2014). A partnership between students and educational staff should be established to provide good communication and support. With support from experienced staff, students have a good foundation to take on responsibility and become more autonomous, which is an important factor for motivation and satisfaction in students (Astin, 1984).

As student representatives in bioCEED (Centre of Excellence in Biology Education at the University of Bergen), we have had the valuable opportunity to start up and run projects for students by students. Many of these projects are most likely more successful because they are student driven, as this removes the power imbalance between staff and students, thus leading to better communication and a lower threshold for fellow students to participate. Although driven by students, collegial help and support from staff is always available. To be part of such an innovative educational community where students are engaged as partners is positive for all parts and something we would urge all institutions to actively encourage. Therefore, we will organise a workshop where challenges and benefits of student engagement are discussed. This will also be a ground for brainstorming and experiencing exchange to encourage enhanced student involvement at participants’ respective institutes.

Initiatives to promote meaningful teaching and learning in postsecondary education have proliferated in the last several years. It is now widely recognized that interventions focused on individual faculty are insufficient for systemic change to occur (e.g., Fairweather, 2009; Kezar and Gehrke, 2015). In contrast, networks appear to have great promise for fostering the sustained adoption of effective and innovative practices throughout higher education (Bryk, Gomez, Grunow, & LeMahieu; 2015; Fairweather, 2009; Kezar & Gehrke, 2015). These networks may take various forms, but those that span across disciplines and institutions have proven to be especially helpful in transforming teaching and learning cultures at the departmental level, with those changes then rippling throughout the institution. This presentation explores how multi-institutional networks can foster widespread faculty adoption of educational practices known to improve student learning, including the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, while also studying how change processes are sensitive to local institutional context. We will describe the efforts and results of one such network, the Bay View Alliance (BVA), comprised of nine US and Canadian research universities that are exploring strategies for cultural change around teaching and learning. The BVA has been developing a Networked Improvement Community (NIC) approach that fosters the formation of clusters of universities that together select interventions for improvement (e.g., course transformation programs or student learning analytics), test them simultaneously, and compare results in order to discover new insights and further innovation. During our presentation we will share the core ideas of the BVA network and illustrate the model by highlighting work in two of the research clusters. Discussion will address lessons learned about how networks of similar institutions, sharing ideas and evidence, can help foster individual and systemic change. Specifically, we will share how multi-institutional networks can (a) support faculty adoption of effective, inclusive, and innovative educational practices, and (b) contribute to greater understanding of the adoption and institutionalization processes. In addition, we will explore with the audience how the networked improvement community approach can generate new ideas, sustain changes in teaching and learning cultures within targeted departments, and foster new avenues for improvements to become more widespread both within and across networked institutions. Throughout the session, we will engage the central conference theme through consideration of how institutional networks can cultivate a learning culture in higher education.

While some medical schools and some professional organizations have developed medical education scholar programs to train their faculty, many medical education faculty have neither these resources nor mentors on their campus. The co-authors recognized a need for the training and mentorship of anatomy faculty interested in education research, and have them be a part of an inclusive learning culture regarding anatomy education. Inspired by the American Physiological Society’s Institute for Teaching and Learning (APS-ITL), the co-authors developed the inaugural Anatomy Education Research Institute (AERI). Funded by an American Association of Anatomists Innovations grant and held over 5 days in July 2017, AERI partnered participants with mentors who were experts in one or more areas of education research. The intensive face-to-face format of AERI allowed the 62 participants and invited speakers to immerse themselves in teaching assessments, educational research, and SoTL.

Multiple IRB-approved assessment instruments were developed by the co-authors, and included a pre-conference survey, end of conference survey, and a 6 month follow up survey. These assessment instruments allowed us to determine immediate and lasting impacts of AERI2017, by measuring knowledge gains and potential attitudinal shifts regarding educational research. The success and projected impact of AERI was and continues to be measured according to Donald L. Kirkpatrick’s (2006, 2007) Four Levels of Evaluation Model (reaction, learning, behavior and results). Respondents overwhelmingly found AERI informative and useful, and felt the face to face mentorship was the most important aspect of the conference (reaction). Comparison of pre- and post-conference survey results indicated participants increased their knowledge of education research methodologies, learning theories, and project design (learning). Participants developed action plans for an education research project and reported meeting several of those action plans on the 6-month follow up survey (behavior). Follow up survey results indicate many AERI participants/mentees are presenting and publishing educational research as a result of attending the conference (results). Specifically: 35% presented a poster (or submitted an abstract to present) on educational research findings at a professional meeting, 26% gave a platform presentation (or submitted an abstract to present) on educational research findings at a professional meeting, 35% submitted (but not yet published) educational research findings in a journal, and 36% published educational research findings in a journal. Thus, evidence suggests a discipline-specific education research institute, such as AERI, has the power to create a culture that learns about SoTL and how it may inform one’s discipline.

This presentation will present the results of the final stage of data collection in a qualitative study exploring the notions of culture shock and critical incidents (Pedersen, 1995) in Group Study Programs (GSPs). GSPs are short term travel study programs of one to six weeks, and are unique learning environments because students and instructors live, study and socialize together for the duration of time these programs are in the field. The compression of time and expansion of space in these programs challenge students to interact with their instructors and classmates in a more intensely charged way than they would interact with them in their home institutions. The intensity lays the foundation for multiple critical incidents to take place resulting in a learning environment that is complex and challenging but one that, if intentionally guided and facilitated by the instructor (Dwyer, 2004), can become more learner-centred (Coryell, 2011; Gmelch, 1997) and can deepen learning objectives and help develop lifelong learners (Jarvis, 2004).

Past results in this qualitative study showed that critical incidents are key in helping students understand the unique learning environments in GSPs. This presentation will share the results of the final part of this study which more fully explores and unpacks the notion of a critical incident from a student perspective. Prior to students leaving for their GSPs, researchers conducted focus groups where participants discussed the notions of critical incidents and fully explored their assumptions around this term. Researchers followed up with participants with a mid-program survey and then completed one to one interviews once participants returned to their home institution. The results will show a deep and complicated definition of critical incidents and culture shock, that, if effectively and intentionally utilized by instructors, can deepen learning objectives and help precipitate what Jarvis (2004) terms disjunctural moments that are key to fostering lifelong learning attributes. Connections between critical incidents, culture shock and disjuncture are currently lacking in the GSP research. This research will help show how these powerful learning environments offer students an opportunity to learn deeply and collaboratively.

Research over the last decade has indicated that active learning and student-centered instruction lead to better learning outcomes in undergraduate biology courses than traditionally common methods, such as lecturing. This shift in pedagogical approach has been applied to both high-enrollment lecture-based courses as well as smaller enrollment laboratory courses. However, much of the research on evidence based teaching practice has come from a North American perspective, with very little research addressing how faculty members from different parts of the world feel about these new teaching strategies or how international students experience student-centered teaching. Understanding how students and faculty from different cultures use and/or experience evidence-based teaching strategies is imperative for maximizing the learning opportunities for all students. We present a paper on a small-scale study conducted in the summer of 2017 that examined the attitudes towards scientific teaching practices among faculty members and students from North America, Norway, and Japan. We measured instructional strategies and student engagement using the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM (COPUS) and performed focus groups with faculty and students to better understand their experience with different instructional techniques. Overall participation, in the form of student generated questions during lecture, was largely dominated by a group of about 5-6 students (~33% of the class). North American and Norwegian students asked far more questions during lecture than Japanese students. Incoming confidence in doing science related tasks was highest in North American students, intermediate in Norwegian students, and lowest in Japanese students, although these differences were not statistically significant. Additionally, it is unclear if lower confidence scores reported by Japanese students were driven by a true confidence deficit or were related to the language barrier experienced by these students. Overall, opportunities for students to interact with peers during lecture were limited. All lectures did contain several opportunities to interact with the professor; however, only the lectures by Norwegian faculty contained defined opportunities for students to interact with their peers. More defined opportunities for peer interactions may help increase the participation of students that tend not to contribute at the whole-class level. All lectures observed had opportunities where peer interactions could have occurred, so facilitating peer interaction would not require a major pedagogical shift. In summation, there are important cultural factors that shape how student and faculty members engage with student-centered instructional techniques and this should be considered when designing courses that incorporate international instructors and students.

Resourcing a culture of learning in the history discipline is a challenge faced by historians across the globe. It is one that requires an imaginative but also a practical approach. In this panel we offer a comparative perspective on the resourcing of support for teaching history in British and Australian universities. We explore the entanglements of the contemporary higher education sector by drawing attention to the worlds of the undergraduate classroom, the emergent history teacher and the experienced lecturer/academic. Each speaker on the panel has worked in the field for upward of two decades or more. We have researched and observed the multiple shifts in the professional space, the surge in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and the expansion of disciplinary and interdisciplinary resources utilised by teachers. We will argue that the disciplinary learning cultures, despite feeling the weight of the sectors’ compliance culture and competitive nature, continue to be enriched. At the same time, such enrichment does not come without effort and does not deliver increasingly positive outcomes without conscious support. Delegates will engage in active discussion about each of these challenges, in order to reconsider the ways resources are marshaled in their own institutional settings. Adele Nye – Imaginative and Enabling Pedagogies for Undergraduate Students of the History Discipline In this presentation we ask how do historians best help undergraduate students navigate the complex learning thresholds of the discipline. In this process students are required to participate in higher order thinking of the discipline which means they must take intellectual risks, challenge taken-for-granted assumptions and navigate uncomfortable spaces of contentious histories. To achieve these goals the lecturer/academic needs to provide students with multiple resources that provide enabling and critically reflective encounters within the history university classroom. Drawing from longitudinal qualitative research in Australian universities we offer practical examples of bold resourcing and sound pedagogical intention. We will argue that the lessons learnt in history also have the potential to inform practice in other disciplines. Peter D’Sena – New to Teaching Workshops as a Resource for early Career Historians In some countries, a variety of generic, often mandatory validated training is offered to new academics to develop their understanding of and practise in teaching and learning in higher education. A common complaint from participants, however, has been the sense that they are missing the enormous benefits that would accrue from subject-specific provision. Conscious of this, in 2011 the UK’s Higher Education Academy (HEA) created a set of New to Teaching events, as a supplementary resource for conveying an in-depth understanding about critical pedagogy, cultures of teaching and learning and exemplar case studies, each framed within a discipline or discipline cluster. Since that time, there have been ten history events – the first six under the auspices of the HEA and, after 2014 (when the HEA withdrew its funding), four more staged through a collaboration of the subject’s key stakeholders: the Royal Historical Society, History UK and the Institute of Historical Research. Data collected from over 200 participants during that period has presented a picture of their perceptions about future engagement with the emergent scholarship about teaching history in higher education. This session will discuss, using history as its focus, the notion of distinctive cultures of teaching and learning and the need for and efficacy of this discipline-specific training resource. Jennifer Clark – History Teaching: A Global Exercise The history discipline in Australian universities is a broad community of scholars that is enhanced by individualised teaching cultures. In our research across this community we have been struck by the unique qualities of particular teachers. We have identified teachers who on the one hand are navigating the multiple demands of an increasingly market-driven sector, yet, on the other hand, establish unique and enabling learning environments. In the final section of our panel we introduce the latest stage of our research collaboration where we aim to showcase outstanding teachers and consider the science of the art of good practice. In particular, we will highlight diverse approaches to scholarship, student engagement, forms of evidence and assessment strategies as well as some of the less tangible elements of the teaching enterprise. Our research seeks to recognise teaching as a highly personalized and therefore uniquely complex undertaking and acknowledge the fruits of dedicated scholarship in teaching and learning in the History discipline.

A growing number of educational offers are becoming available online. This development is also apparent in the field of educational development, where the provision of online and blended learning formats is increasing. However, while technology may make learning independent of time and space, it also challenges the view of educational development as cultural work occurring at a particular institution (see Stensaker, 2017; Mårtensson, Roxå, & Olsson, 2011). Our presentation focuses on emerging work at one higher education institution. We are currently developing introductory teaching and learning courses for doctoral teaching assistants as blended learning offers. We seek to design these courses with the goal of contributing to the professional development of individuals while simultaneously considering how we can deliberately build collective teaching expertise (see Geertsema, 2015) at our local institutional level. We illustrate how we systematically capture the teaching and learning expertise which is developed among this target group in the form of SoTL-inspired artefacts and how we approach curating the reintroduction of participants’ individual expertise at a collective level in our blended learning course formats.

The compulsion to publish and to engage in scholarly communication is a ritualised process. Drawing on Hagstrom’s (1965) anthropological perspective, Chandler (1995) advised that publishing is primarily a gift exchange system rather than a contractual or bartering one, where the “gift of papers” is reciprocated with the “gift of recognition” (p. 212). In addition to achieving recognition of teaching practice or research, as scholars we publish to stake a claim on an idea or discovery, or use publication as a means of shifting/reinforcing the focus of SoTL. At a personal level, writing and publication is a form of ‘academic rite of passage’ since, as argued by Wisker (2013), “acceptance into the published community signifies and enables wider acceptance into the communities of those who create, articulate and share knowledge” (p. 345).

This paper will provide an update to an investigation that examined the scale and state of institutional higher education (IHE) journals. IHE journals are ‘in-house’ pedagogic/higher education research publications, comprising an editorial board and reviewers from that institution. Using the UK as the focus of study, Mistry (2017) found that about 25 open access versions of these journals were produced this decade. Some of the journals are long-standing ones, such as Manchester Metropolitan University’s 'Learning and Teaching in Action' (established 2002), while others are just emerging, for example 'IMPact: University of Lincoln Journal of Higher Education Research' (2018). IHE journals occupy a distinct space in the continuum of SoTL scholarly communications. They are not aiming to compete with other pedagogic or higher education research journals but, as observed, many have been fashioned to support the development of staff and students. The potential value of the IHE journal can be understood when illuminated against Nygaard’s (2017) academic literacies perspective: academics’ affiliation to more than one community (e.g. subject/discipline affiliation versus a teaching one) may bring to the surface conflicting expectations, as writing about teaching practice will sometimes require different scholarly conventions to those required in other academic disciplines.

This session will question how IHE journals might be deployed to embed a ‘culture that learns’. Reflecting on, and then moving on from the perspective of the individual, how might the journal be repurposed in institutional terms, or facilitate SoTL to 'go meta' (Hutchings & Shulman, 1999)? Might IHE journals be the connective tissue that bridges the chasm between individual research and institutional decision-making?

The number of teaching-stream faculty (those hired to focus on teaching, rather than research) continues to rise (Vander Kloet, Frake-Mistak, McGinn, Caldecott, Aspenlieder, Beres, et al., 2017), raising concerns about opportunities for these academics, who are hired to focus on teaching, rather than research, to engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Various names for these teaching-stream positions include, but are not limited to, instructional limited term faculty, permanent but not eligible for tenure, equivalent to tenure-track (eligible for tenure), etcetera. These academics, hired for excellence in teaching, and often committed to focusing on improving teaching and learning, face challenges unique to their academically marginalized positions (Flavell, Roberts, Fyfe, & Broughton, 2017; Vander Kloet, Frake-Mistak, McGinn, Caldecott, Aspenlieder, Beres, et al., 2017).

What are the key experiences of these teaching stream faculty vis-a-vis SoTL? In what ways does the institutional culture around teaching and learning affect these roles and in what ways do they affect the culture? Building on our Advocacy and Outreach session at ISSoTL in Calgary in 2017, we have invited teaching-stream faculty to contribute narrative examples of institutional SoTL challenges and strategies for overcoming them. In these case studies, teaching-stream faculty share their perspectives on the following issues:

1. Are you able to engage in SoTL?
2. When you engage in SoTL, what barriers or supports do you encounter that are related to your position?
3. Are SoTL grants or other forms of monetary research support available to you?
4. Are there other exclusions or incentives for engaging in SoTL relating to your position?
5. What supports or institutional factors (including culture) would assist you in engaging in SoTL within your institution?

Using these case studies as starting points for discussion, we invite you to examine compelling themes and the extent to which they resonate with your experiences. There will be opportunity to share your own narratives and discuss issues and potential solutions to creating institutional cultures that are supportive of teaching stream faculty engaging in SoTL. We will finish the session by brainstorming ways we might move forward to create a SoTL teaching-stream community to provide social and professional support.

The current global discussion related to quality in higher education provides a timely catalyst for us to work together to change the conversation (Gilbert, 2018). This interactive workshop will explain one process for building a Learning Culture using the collaborative Learning Improvement Model (Fulcher et al., 2014). In the model, faculty, educational developers, and assessment professionals collaborate to focus on one programmatic student learning outcome to highlight learning stories evidencing improvement in higher education. At our institution, we have preliminary data that the process itself improves organizational cohesion using sense of belonging, organizational culture, and self-efficacy scales (Bollen & Hoyle, 1990; Glaser et al., 1987; Ryan & Deci, 2000). Qualitative interviews analyzed along the Learning Culture Continuum scale suggest similar learning culture improvements (Sagy et al., 2018). Workshop participants will team up to investigate “a case study within a case study” in learning culture via our institutional context, understand and apply the learning improvement model, consider the institutional situational factors that inform their own institutional contexts, and be prepared to launch a learning improvement project using the “Learning Improvement Checklist”.

We talk about redesigning programs, courses, and syllabi to focus on a learning centred perspective (Grunert, 1997; McCowin, 1999), but do we do the same when we teach about SoTL? What about taking a learning centred approach (Hubball & Burt, 2004) to teaching SoTL? Rather than ad hoc or one-off workshops, what do neophyte SoTL scholars need to support their engagement in SoTL research? We know that novice SoTL scholars get caught up in the language and conventions of this new approach to research. This workshop aims to create a community of SoTL educators creating a learning culture by working together to refine how we teach SoTL. We can work to increase the scholarship in SoTL practice by knowing more about how facilitators teach and participants engage with it.

The outline of the workshop will be in four parts. First, the facilitator(s) will begin with a short introduction to a learning centred approach in SoTL. Next, participants will review, with prompts, sample SoTL programs. While the facilitators will offer an introduction, examples, and prompts, the workshop will depend largely on participant interests and interaction. The hands-on work will involve participants bringing in a SoTL program, course, or workshop that they teach or an idea for a program, course, or workshop that they might be teaching soon. In light of what we know about where participants get stuck in SoTL (Manarin & Abrahamson, 2016; Miller-Young, Yeo, & Manarin, 2018; Tierney, 2016; Webb, 2015), workshop participants will work, individually or in small groups, to refine their SoTL offering. The workshop will conclude with participants sharing their refinements and the challenges that they have encountered in adopting a learning centred approach.

Educators have for decades claimed that the potential for learning through combined research- and field disciplinary learning activities is extraordinarily high, and that learning outcomes encompass knowledge content, practical skills, and personal development (Kent, Gilbertson, & Hunt, 1997). In particular, these benefits can be fostered through student-active methods, such as authentic research activities in the field (Behrendt, 2014; Kent et al., 1997). Learning experiences such as problem-solving also address developments in job markets, where education must encourage skills computers are less likely to develop and that are transferable to other areas, like creativity, collaborative skills, abstract thinking, and the ability to adjust plans when unexpected things happen (European Comission, 2011). Furthermore, many employers value these skills more than specific knowledge content (Hole et al., 2016). Concurrently in the last decades, there have been advances in understanding of situated learning –  that is, moving learning towards the primacy of individuals' engagement with context (e.g., Eraut, 2010; Lave, 1997). Situated learning is one of the principal strengths of field-, lab, and research-based approaches to higher education, as students learn as they construct their own knowledge. However little research is done on students’ situated learning in fieldwork. We suggest that situated learning can increasingly be implemented to understand field excursion learning, and that this perspective also enable a better understanding of how field excursions contribute to important learning. The University Centre in Svalbard (UNIS) offers a unique possibility to investigate how intersection between research experiences and field work influence learning. Most courses at UNIS have a field component, and students are frequently involved in authentic research activities like student driven research projects or contribution to staff research. This pedagogical affordance is founded on a situated conception of learning, where the movement of students into specific contexts is important for their learning. In a study performed at UNIS during fall 2015, fieldwork was investigated to see how bachelor students’ engagement with fieldwork practices influenced their development of biological knowledge (Hole, 2018). Learning was studied as a sociocultural activity with short-term ethnographic techniques to investigate the effect of fieldwork on situated learning.

Residential field courses are a signature pedagogy of the environmental sciences and as such are relatively well researched. The benefits of field courses to students include the development of disciplinary and transferable skills, and the immersive environment of the field course enables deeper learning (e.g., Scott et al, 2012). They are however, costly to students, faculty and institutions and it is important therefore that field courses are designed to be effective and efficient. Much of the research on field courses adopts a pre/post trip evaluation methodology (where students are asked to express opinions prior to and after participation). In the project I will present we have adopted a different approach based upon Blair’s model of Vitruvian Reflection (Blair, 2011; Blair and Deacon, 2015). Through an analysis of the structured in-situ active reflections of our students in the relatively under-researched affective and conative domains we have developed a more nuanced understanding of the factors underlying student engagement with learning opportunities afforded by the field course experience. These new insights provide an opportunity to make our field courses even better. In presenting this work I will focus particularly on the importance of adequate student preparation, the management of student expectations, the value of student independence and ownership of learning and the willingness of staff members to re-conceptualize their practice.