Thursday, October 25th 2018 PSB

Traditional lectures with large student audiences are often characterized by one-way communication from the lecturer to the students. This may be a passivizing experience for the students due to lack of possibilities for active participation. In addition, students’ fear of exposing themselves to fellow students may prevent them from responding to questions during the lectures. However, digital response systems, or student response systems (SRS), enable anonymous interaction between students and lecturers by giving quizzes and assignments which can be responded to immediately and provide the students with instant feedback on their portable devices (smartphones, laptops, etc.).

Research has indicated that use of SRS leads to improvement of short- and long-term learning (Nelson, Hartling, Campbell, & Oswald, 2012), increased students engagement and participation (Han & Finkelstein, 2013; Oigara & Keengwe, 2013), increased learning activity (Lantz, 2010), students become more focused during learning situations (Cain, Black, & Rohr, 2009), and students report increased learning outcome (Nelson et al., 2012).

This presentation reports findings from a study of 128 psychology students who volunteered to respond to a questionnaire assessing how they experienced use of SRS (multiple choice questions) in lectures during the course of a semester. The students reported a high degree of satisfaction with use of SRS. They particularly appreciated to reveal gaps in their own knowledge. They were also quite satisfied with the level of difficulty of the questions, and the extent to which SRS was utilized in the particular lecture series. However, a substantial minority of the students reported that SRS did not help them in their understanding of the subject, which is noteworthy within a framework of learning taxonomies (Krathwohl, 2002). The results also showed that students who expected poorer exam performance particularly valued SRS as a tool during lectures.

The benefits of using SRS may be explained by referring to the concept of “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, 2000): an experience of total engagement occurring when there is a balance between abilities and challenge (level of difficulty), and when there is a possibility for immediate feedback on performance. It may also be accounted for by the so-called test effect (Herrebrøden, 2014): SRS give the opportunity to test the students’ actual knowledge by providing optimal challenges as well as immediate feedback. Hence, it is important that the students experience an appropriate level of difficulty, as the present findings indicate.

The aim of the project “Auditorium activities in biology education” is to enhance active learning in traditional auditorium teaching in biology. The aim is to improve the education and to raise the teachers’ awareness of their role in the discipline’s learning culture, and thus to promote students’ learning. Varied teaching activities will engage both students and teachers and sustain meaningful learning. Furthermore, a belief in education as a learning community, where participants work together and share experiences, underlies the project and its design. In this perspective, both teachers and students are seen as learners and thus as being in development.

The project “Auditorium activities in biology education” is interdisciplinary, with participants from the departments of biology and pedagogy. The project will run a blog, biologididaktikk.w.uib.no, where participants can find descriptions of the activities and useful literature and web resources.

The project offers biology teachers a range of activities that they may try in their auditoriums, all easy to implement in teaching at undergraduate level. Some activities are suitable as “breaks” during lectures, while others may serve as a surprising start, repetition, or as stimulating thought-provokers. All are meant to activate students and enhance their learning of the subject matter. The activities are research based, chosen and developed on the grounds of research of learning activities that have been proven likely to result in more efficient learning in both a short term and a long term perspective.

It is important that the range of activities is sufficiently broad so that all participants may find something that suits their particular courses. It is also crucial that the “activity experiment” causes no more than a minimum increase in their workload. Often, no special equipment and hardly any extra preparations are required.

The next step will be focus group interviews with particular emphasis on the participants’ experiences and what impact these are likely to have on their future practice. The subsequent analysis of the data will look into practicalities, e.g., what seemed to work, what did not work so well, and which factors seem to be of importance to the result? The blog biologididaktikk.w.uib.no will be evaluated and developed accordingly. We will also explore the participants’ attitudes, convictions and (educational) beliefs, and to what extent these seem to influence the outcome of the changes.

Despite significant research supporting active learning, many professors continue to use traditional lectures as their primary teaching method, particularly in introductory level courses. While many pay “lip service” to the benefits of active learning, the reasons for not embracing it are justified by such comments as not enough time for lesson preparation or material they must get through. Others have stated that students prefer the lectures over active learning. They don’t come to class to do the work of the professor, but to get “fed” the content. Admittedly, I have felt this way at times. Those thoughts led me to researching how jigsaw cooperative learning (JCL) compares to lecture style teaching in my introductory insurance business classes. Jigsaw learning is not teacher-centered. It engages all students, and is beneficial in facilitating relationship-building. Each member of the group has an opportunity to research, teach and learn from others, further developing a strong culture of learners.

In JCL each member of a group is assigned a “piece” of the puzzle (content). They are expected to research and consult with members from other groups who have been assigned the same topic. They learn from each other further developing their knowledge. Reporting back to their home group, they teach their “piece” of the puzzle to their teammates. In this way JCL facilitates a strong culture of learners.

My research question explores JCL and the impact it has on student grades and their learning experience. Effective teaching techniques where all students are engaged is valuable in cultivating a culture of learners. In addition to explaining what JCL is, through a small group discussion, I will encourage participants to consider how JCL might be used in their own courses. I will share the results of my study which compares the grades between the two teaching methods as well as a comparison of the student experience. The results will also be shared comparing two distinct student groups: 1) Traditional university group of diverse students, and 2) International cohort of students from India.

Permitting limited student-created notes in an examination has been found to reduce student anxiety (Erbe, 2007) and improve student success on the exams themselves (Rice, Vogelweid & Kitchel, 2017; Larwin, Gorman & Larwin, 2013). Less is known about student strategies for creating these notes. In particular, laptops in the classroom have encouraged notes that are transcriptions of the board or slides, creating a culture of completeness in notetaking. This study investigates the differential effect of transcriptive vs. integrated notecards on exam performance. Participants will discuss strategies for guiding students on better practice for learning from the process of creating notes.

Developments in information, communication, and technologies (ICT) enhance and extend the learning possibilities beyond the traditional learning tools. Among the most used ICT for educational purposes is smartphones (Hashemi, Azizinezhad, Najafi, & Nesari, 2011). Smartphones have become ubiquitous and an important tool in today’s society, and thus offer learning supportive functions. For instance, according to Hashemi et al. (2011), the possibility for interaction, collaboration, ease of use, and game-like experiences might contribute to perceive such tools, relative to traditional tools, as more relevant, engaging, and interesting, which in turn might enhance intrinsic motivation, positive moods, and achievement (Jeno, Grytnes, & Vandvik, 2017).

There have been several studies investigating the effectiveness of smartphones on student learning (e.g., Schmid et al., 2014), however, there is further need to employ experimental designs on the effect of smartphones on learning, using well-developed theories (Zydney & Warner, 2016). Building on the theoretical perspective of SDT, the present paper presents results from a randomized controlled experiment. According to Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Ryan & Deci, 2017), a leading motivation theory, the experience of autonomy, competence, and relatedness enhances students´ intrinsic motivation, which in turn, predicts intrinsic motivation, psychological well-being, and learning.

In the present study, fifty-eight undergraduate biology students were randomized to two conditions; an experimental (smartphone) and a control (traditional textbook). Pre-test and post-test measures of positive and negative affect were collected, as were post-test measures of intrinsic motivation, autonomy, competence, and achievement. Results were in line with our theoretical assumptions; students in the smartphone condition showed significantly less negative affect from pre-test to post-test. Moreover, there was a significant increase in negative affect and decrease in positive affect for the students in the traditional textbook condition. Lastly, results from a path-analysis revealed that using a smartphone indirectly accounted for increased achievement and increased positive affect. The study contributes with new insight into why and how smartphones might affect student motivation, well-being, and learning which has previously been unstudied. Moreover, the theoretical contribution allows for the ability to design smartphones applications that might support students´ psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness.

Students struggle with learning by solving physics problems in the beginning stages of skill learning. Here, we will test whether students learn faster in the initial learning stages when we combine self-explanations with problem solving. We will test whether self-explanation of the solution followed by solving the same physics problem is better than either self-explanation alone or traditional problem solving for performance on two test problems with similar structure as the practice problems. Practice time will be kept constant. Self-explanations have usually been investigated in relation to studying worked examples in textbooks. We want to further this strategy for use in general problem solving. The hypotheses will be pre-registered. The trial will be randomized, controlled, and double-blinded. The hypotheses are that self-explanation paired with problem solving is better than self-explaining alone, and that self-explanation is better than traditional problem solving practice. We expect medium to large effect sizes. To form a culture of learning we need to focus on learning strategies, because strategies are mainly what can be transferred across domains. It is also important to focus on how we can improve the initial learning stages. The qualitative characteristics of self-explanations seem to be uncorrelated with prior knowledge (Michelene T. H. Chi & VanLehn, 1991; Renkl, 1997). On the other hand, they seem to be highly important for learning effects (M. T. H. Chi, Bassok, Lewis, Reimann, & Glaser, 1989). It has also been shown that the quality of self-explanations can be improved by simple prompts (M. T. H. Chi, Deleeuw, Chiu, & Lavancher, 1994), and to great effect (Badeau, White, Ibrahim, Ding, & Heckler, 2017). Prompted self-explanation especially benefits students with low prior knowledge (Renkl, Stark, Gruber, & Mandl, 1998), and is therefore an inclusive strategy. We hypothesize that combining self-explanations with problem solving can give the best from both strategies, by learning more rules (VanLehn, Jones, & Chi, 1992) and generating answers (Anderson, 1987; Chen, Kalyuga, & Sweller, 2015).

How can a culture of SoTL become better appreciated and supported in research intensive universities?

The wealth of required expertise, the challenges of engaging in high-quality SoTL, and its potential to transform learning, are often underappreciated. One key challenge is that much of the disciplinary expertise of faculty members does not transfer well to their SoTL work, as most academic fields are not concerned with evaluating human behaviour and learning. At the same time, SoTL should build off disciplinary methodologies and epistemologies. In order to overcome this tension and with the goal of making SoTL accessible to a wider audience, institutions are continuously developing programs that aim at scaffolding and sustaining faculty engagement with SoTL within and across disciplines (Dobbins, 2008; Webb, Wong, Hubball, 2013). Research-intensive institutions in particular, have incorporated SoTL in ways that have have been categorized as 1) broad national initiatives, 2) institutional supports, including centres for teaching and learning and, 3) strategic, institutionally supported SoTL Leadership programs (Hubball, Clarke, Webb, & Johnson, 2015; Wieman, 2017).

In this session we present a successful institutional model that supports faculty members in learning to SoTL within disciplinary norms and produce high-quality research on teaching and learning. The SoTL Seed program has several pillars: (i) partnership with expert students who contribute from their knowledge of learning theories and methodologies; (ii) a set of workshops and resources that facilitate professional development; (iii) door-to-door support from project inception to publication; (iv) a community that encourages reflection and sharing of challenges; and (v) synergistic support with other teaching and learning innovation programs on campus. The program balances projects in terms of focus, discipline, and rigour. It uses these as opportunities for grounded, contextual professional-development for faculty members, in order to increase their agency and capacity as SoTL researchers and hubs.

The program was well received by faculty members. Evidence for its success comes from the number of applications (from 15 in 2015 to 51 in 2017), from program evaluation, and from invitations to collaborate with other strategic initiatives. This success makes an impact on the value and culture of SoTL within our institution, extending beyond the participating projects.

During the session we will share the program structure, evidence for its success, and current dilemmas. We will then work in small groups to abstract key principles of the program and the way to transfer these across contexts to a variety of institutions.

Even with strong institutional infrastructure and support in place, developing, supporting, and sustaining faculty engagement with SoTL can be challenging. This is, perhaps, most evident within the community college and polytechnic sector, given the teaching schedules and varied levels of research experience among faculty (Morest, 2015). In this session, we will describe a recently piloted SoTL development framework, adapted from models in the university sector (e.g., Hamilton, 2014; Hum et al., 2015) to align with the affordances and limitations of a polytechnic context.

Our framework includes initiatives to support the most commonly cited components of scholarly teaching (consumption of the SoTL literature and integration into practice, Trigwell et al., 2000), and SoTL: a) systematic investigation of teaching and learning, and b) subsequent dissemination of the findings (Potter & Kustra, 2011; Trigwell et al., 2000). We will trace the implementation of this framework through Hamilton’s (2014) three SoTL support typologies: Developing institutional expertise, supporting research in action, and sustaining collective engagement.

Throughout, one theme will be apparent: the need to foster a SoTL culture that fits the realities of the institution, so that faculty members can find – and make – time for scholarship. We will share innovative solutions we have developed or adapted, in order to make scholarship a possibility for faculty. These include our developmental funding model, scholarly cafes and clubs, writing retreats, podcasts, and 'micro-publications' in our scholarly teaching and learning journal.

For each, we will provide qualitative and quantitative markers of success (and lack thereof), based on survey data, relevant metrics, and faculty reflections collected over the past three years since the framework was implemented. We will also share lessons learned, changes made, and aspirational next steps, such as a scholarly mentorship network. These will serve as a launching point for discussion about the ways in which educational developers and institutions can support scholarly cultures that are realistic and sustainable in today's college and polytechnic context.

Universities can certainly be considered learning cultures, however engaging in all aspects of learning, particularly engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning as a university-wide practice, is not always recognized. Institutional change towards a culture of learners through SoTL can be slow. However, with an integrated vision, a wide range of opportunities, shared agendas, rewards, international connections and a well-planned timeline, SoTL can be integrated into a university wide initiative (Hutchings, Huber, Ciccone, 2011). With this in mind, our institution is currently working on a cultural change that values SoTL across campus. In this presentation, we will share our model for creating a culture of learners within our university.

Our university is implementing three projects using a model to support faculty and graduate assistants in the design, implementation, analyzing and dissemination of research that assesses teaching and the resulting impact on student learning. The first project includes a summer institute for teams from within departments or interdisciplinary teams in which faculty and graduate students learn from experts in SoTL about how to design a research project. The second project involves an international faculty learning community partnership between our university and Tashkent State University of Economics in Uzbekistan, in which faculty partners from both universities will design and implement SoTL projects. Finally, a group of STEM faculty who are part of the summer institute on teaching and learning will work in teams to develop SoTL projects in their disciplines within the university and in partnership with our state community colleges. All these projects will then simultaneously engage in designing, implementing, analyzing and disseminating a SoTL project over a two-year period. The projects will end with a campus wide symposium and competition for funding to disseminate results at additional conferences.

In this presentation we will share the lessons we learned with our pilot project, and solicit feedback from workshop participants for further project development.

Learning how to learn is one of the most important tasks for students in higher education. If students understand their own learning processes, it will have a lasting impact on their ability to learn – even outside university. Therefore, students’ ability to reflect on their knowledge and learning is one of the overall requirements for a degree in Swedish higher education. Consequently, this ability needs to be taught and trained throughout the education.

In a recent study, we explore how reflective writing can be integrated in content studies as a means of stimulating and improving learning. The study comprises three case studies, where academic teachers from different disciplines introduced and analysed the outcomes of reflective assignments in their content courses. The analyses of students’ reflective texts were conducted by the teachers using qualitative content analysis. Throughout the process of data collection and analysis, the teachers met (on three occasions) for the purpose of discussing their findings and giving peer-feedback. Hence, the overall results of the current study emerged from the three case studies through a research process that was characterised by collegial exchange and support. As such, the study could thus be seen as an example of how the scholarship of teaching and learning can be carried out in practice.

The results show that integration of reflective writing in the curriculum can support subject learning as well as the development of generic skills, but that not all students manage to write academic reflections. The results also suggest that reflective writing promotes students’ metacognitive skills and development towards a reflective professional practice. In addition, reflective writing can support other generic skills, such as the ability to establish long term goals, plan and take responsibility, and support fellow students’ learning through peer-feedback. An overall conclusion is that reflective writing has impact not only on the individual student’s learning, but on the whole learning environment.

In our presentation, we will summarise our findings and suggest how students can learn to master the genre of academic reflection. We will also show examples of how academic reflections can be used for promoting progression, helping students fulfil their requirements, and bridging the gap between higher education and professional practice. Finally, we will discuss the opportunities and pedagogical challenges with integrating reflective writing in content courses, and share the teachers’ experiences and recommendations from the study.

Teaching philosophies are both inherent yet elusive aspects of teaching practices. They dictate how people teach, what people believe teaching and learning to be, and what it means to be an educator. At the same time, when pressed, many educators struggle to articulate their teaching philosophies or how they influence teaching practices. Our local teacher education program strives to foster a culture of learners where preservice teachers recursively contemplate their philosophies. To engender high quality teaching, preservice teachers need to articulate their emerging philosophies, discuss challenges and insights, and weave connections between teaching, learning, and their experiences (Zeichner & Liston, 2014). Yet, we have observed many preservice teachers struggle to be aware of, and articulate, their teaching philosophies.

Many teacher education programs aim to “create environments and experiences that bring students to discover and construct knowledge for themselves” (Barr & Tagg, 1995, p. 15). To better understand if our local program meets this goal, we ask: how does a Bachelor of Education (BEd) program shape the way preservice teachers (students) develop, articulate, and reflect on their teaching philosophies over time?

As part of a two-year, SoTL study, we investigate how students’ teaching philosophies evolve while completing a BEd program at a Western Canada university. Our data sources include four student interviews across two years in courses and practicums, students’ reflective statements about teaching, and a document analysis of program syllabi.

Preliminary data suggests many preservice teachers do not actively consider their teaching philosophies when entering a BEd program. Several participants seemed confused when asked “what is your teaching philosophy?”. When asked about values or beliefs toward teaching, most participants referenced specific experiences (e.g., piano teacher) to construct a shaky articulation of their philosophies. Interestingly, some participants described their beliefs and values in terms of a hypothetical ideal teacher rather than themselves, suggesting they had not yet internalized their own ideas. Several participants also admitted uncertainty in how to tie their teaching philosophies to the curriculum and teaching practices.

As we explore the data, we aim to “describe and systematically analyze the student experience” (Hutchings, 2000, p. 4). This study uniquely showcases how well a BEd program does – or does not – actually foster a culture of learners and a culture that learns.

Literature reviewing is a signature doctoral pedagogy (Golde, 2007) through which students learn to read and write as scholars in their disciplines; develop techniques for managing large bodies of information and knowledge; and practice the skills and craft of disciplinary-specific research (Green, 2009). Often viewed as a troublesome academic exercise, the literature review seems like an obligatory writing task that precedes more meaningful projects. I propose, however, that literature reviewing is a site for practicing literacies essential for academic success. I will begin the session by describing my practice-informed, qualitative investigation of doctoral learners’ literature reviewing experiences, with the goal of presenting the literature review process as a complex pedagogical apparatus. Interview narratives from doctoral students across several disciplines, interpreted through the frameworks of critical literacy and critical pedagogy, revealed that doctoral learners became more proficient in reading, writing, information, and research literacies by engaging with disciplinary literatures. While becoming more adept at reading from and writing about the literature of their fields, they began to identify themselves as skilled, autonomous researcher-scholars. The intriguing theme of academic reading — the point at which reviewing the literature begins — emerged from the study and is one that I continue to explore. I will turn to my current SoTL research into doctoral students’ needs (West, 2013), which focuses on their experiences and struggles with academic reading (Manarin, 2012; Manarin, Carey, Rathburn, & Ryland, 2015) in the context of preparing extensive literature reviews. Despite the fundamental role of reading at the doctoral level, we know little about how doctoral students develop, understand, and deploy reading practices. Indeed, interest in reading in higher education is limited (Weller, Domarkaite, Lam, & Metta, 2013); stakeholders in the SoTL community would benefit from deeper understanding of academic reading and its pedagogy. Student voices will be represented through examples of their written and interview narratives. I will detail a few pedagogical approaches and invite session participants to critique these examples and apply some to their own learning and teaching practices. The aims of this session are twofold: to consider the pedagogical potential of the doctoral literature review and to shine a light on the importance of doctoral reading (McAlpine, 2012) as an element of that endeavor. Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their students’ and their own engagements with literature reviewing and academic reading.

This panel discussion on creativity/conceptual inventiveness (C/CI) is based on our continuing SoTL journey that began by asking the following questions: in art courses what is it that students learn about creativity and is this worth learning; what activities enable the learning/growth/development to occur; what helps students be more effective as artists; and how can I support my students (O’Brien, 2008)? These questions served as compass points that emerged following external accreditation review indicating a lack of creativity/conceptual inventiveness in student artwork. This action also fostered an extended faculty examination of implicit/explicit beliefs in creative practice. While case study results of our SoTL journey documented individual faculty and departmental steps toward meaningful change, what was lacking was student engagement in our SoTL process (Felten, Bagg, Bumbry, Hill, Hornsby, Pratt, Weller, 2013). We – a recently accepted BFA student interested in formulating undergraduate research, a tenure track faculty approaching tenure/promotion who also supervises part-time faculty and coordinates foundation level courses, and an art education professor serving as a “critical friend” – are working together as a/r/tographers (Irwin & Springgay, 2008). For the first 30 minutes of this panel, we will present three individual process/product accounts of our partnership to meaningfully engage and support each other as we collaboratively investigate creativity while navigating our complex relationships within our learning environment. For us critical questions about creativity/conceptual inventiveness (C/CI) have emerged including: what is the student’s understanding of C/CI and its importance in their artwork; can C/CI be taught; what perceptions or knowledge do students have about person/product/place/process perspectives regarding creativity; in general, what does it mean to be creative in art and design; can creativity be assessed in a way that deepens student’s learning; and finally, if barriers to the creative process exist what can faculty do to support students through learning activities?

Building on current and prior research to account for both the scholarly work accomplished and our local context (Felten, 2013) this presentation also presents results from our mixed methods longitudinal and IRB approved study, “Effective teaching of conceptual inventiveness and creativity in visual arts,” utilizing student focus groups and surveys. Additionally, the results of our process of horizontal but not yet vertical “constructive alignment” (Angelo, 2012) of foundation courses leading to portfolio review will be presented.

In studio pedagogy, focus on “skill and drill” is often juxtaposed against knowledge that students need to develop as creative individuals in their personal as well as professional lives (Sawyer, 2017). Yet as Jackson (2006) noted, summatively driven assessment practices and criteria that only focus on what is known, yet does not recognize learning processes or how people come to know or recognize emergent unanticipated learning outcomes, will smother creativity. In this presentation, our process is focused on student learning in art and design being conducted in partnership with art students who are part of a large, suburban, public university. After our 30-minute collage presentation the panel will invite participants to engage in open verbal/non-verbal discussions and art-based learning activities to build an “influence map” so that participants can a/r/tographically tell more stories that will teach us how to live with more creativity, confidence, flexibility, and imagination (Leggo, 2008); to build a more inclusive SoTL landscape; and to discover “becoming a/r/tography” (Irwin, 2013) specifically “conceptualizing becoming (emphasis ours) within the multiplicities of our work” in those “in-between spaces among the identities, practices, and processes of artists, researchers, and educators, and in the conditions of learning to learn” (p. 24).

Increased participation in global educational experiences is an objective of many colleges and universities in the United States, with the goal of producing graduates prepared to enter the global workforce with greater awareness, knowledge, and competencies related to economic, social, and civic engagement (Dolby, 2007; Engberg, 2013; Hovland, 2014; Norris & Gillespie, 2007; Tarrant, 2010). An emphasis on 1) gaining knowledge about diversity; 2) considering issues within local and global communities; and 3) collaborating to solve problems is at the core of many curricular designs for global learning (Hovland, 2014). Educational initiatives that foster global learning include high-impact practices such as study abroad/away, internships, and service learning (Kuh, 2008; Kuh & O’Donnell, 2013).

Although global learning and some associated terms (e.g., intercultural competence, global citizenship) have been defined in research and practice, there is less clarity about an umbrella term that is increasingly utilized to capture the complexity and overlapping nature of global educational processes and outcomes – global engagement. Our preliminary analyses of the scholarly literature yielded no widely accepted definitions of the term. In fact, we find that the term is often used without being defined at all.

In this presentation we will examine the term global engagement within the scholarly literature of global learning and high-impact educational practices and map the use of conceptually related terms into three domains: learning/knowledge; skills/behavior; and attitudes/dispositions. We propose an operational definition that will clarify the term and provide guidance for an emerging Scholarship of Global Engagement (SoGE). We will suggest several promising areas for future, related scholarship.

We aim to engage the audience in conversation that explores this working definition, generates conceptual areas of scholarship, and reflects on the relationship between the scholarship of global engagement, SoTL, and the conference themes of creating a culture for learning and of learners in domestic and international contexts. The foci on cultivating and sustaining engaged learning through complex relationships, and generating meaningful teaching and learning that lasts beyond an immediate course or program, are inextricably linked with the scholarship of global engagement.

Short-term global education (STGE) courses have students travelling with an instructor for a period of weeks, and attempt to extend the learning culture of a campus into the wider world. The STGE learning environment typically foregrounds distinctive learner goals, expectations and relationships. “Student engagement” in such a context differs greatly from an on-campus course. Drawing on a content analysis of syllabi and interviews with faculty from a mid-sized, private American university, we explore motivations, goals, and impacts of assessing participation in STGE courses. Although the learning goals of STGE courses may be similar to those of campus-based courses, we find that faculty conceptualize and assess participation in STGE courses in distinctive ways.

Although assessment of “class participation” is often seen as a way to incentivize performance (e.g., Merva, 2003; Trooboff, Cressey, & Monty, 2004), assessment scholars “almost universally advise against” the practice (Bean & Peterson, 1998, p. 33). The main problem is that participation is typically graded “impressionistically,” which disadvantages certain types of students (e.g., the introverted) and is difficult to justify or defend.

Faculty draw upon diverse experiences and beliefs about student learning when they develop their courses. In a regular course context, “participation” may be conceptualized as “coming prepared to class” or “making meaningful contributions to class discussions” or “collaborating usefully on team projects.” In the STGE context, “participation” often takes on a broader definition, encompassing behavior such as “taking advantage of opportunities for cultural exchange.” Engles and Engles (2015) argue the primary goal of study abroad is to present the “emotional and intellectual challenge of direct, authentic cultural encounters and guided reflection upon those encounters” (pp. 6-7). Faculty often encourage these encounters though an operationalization and assessment of “participation” that is unique to their STGE courses.

In this session, we will present multiple learning scenarios to help attendees understand: 1) how participation is conceptualized in STGE courses and 2) how participation is operationalized and assessed in STGE courses. Faculty conceptualize the academic goals and content of STGE differently from those of their campus-based courses, with important implications for student learning, course design, and faculty development. This paper session will provide an overview of our findings, suggest themes for discussion and future investigation, and provide opportunities for the audience to share perspectives from their own campus contexts.

Participating in a study abroad program can be a transformative experience for students as they experience new cultures and ways of life. There is considerable research that indicates numerous benefits of participation in study abroad programs, such as the development of interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, mental flexibility, tolerance of ambiguity, and skill sets that contribute to career readiness to function in an increasingly global society (Braskamp, Braskamp, & Merrill, 2009; Cai & Sankaran, 2015; Costello, 2015; Salyers, Carston, Dean, & London, 2015). Another outcome of studying abroad is an increase in intercultural competence. Deardorff (2015) defines intercultural competence as “communication and behavior that are both effective and appropriate cultural interactions” (p.218). Intercultural competence is considered a requisite skill in the 21st-century global workforce, and therefore many universities have developed initiatives to increase the number of students who participate in education abroad programs. However, to date there has been no study that describes the changes that take places amongst students from one such university and how this contributes to the development of a learning culture. This session presents the findings of a campus-wide research project on the learning outcomes of undergraduates participating in study abroad programs.

Walls (2016) presents a theoretical framework for SoTL that lends itself well to a study on education abroad. This framework, based on ecological theory, is comprised of four dimensions: process, person, context, and time. These processes can be applied to study abroad in terms of student experiences while abroad, the motivation for studying abroad, the context in which the program took place, and the learning that takes place over time.

In the first phase of the study, 1,500 students who had participated in a study abroad program in the last two years were invited to complete and online survey about their experience. 150 students completed the survey, and 23 participated in focus group sessions to delve deeper into their experiences and their perceived learning outcomes as a result. The data were analyzed using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) to identify common themes. Results indicate that participants had increased levels of confidence, autonomy, and self-efficacy, the ability to connect with others, and identify aspects of U.S. culture. The researchers conclude that the education abroad experience influenced both the personal and professional development of the participants and will make several recommendations for how this work might be carried out on other campuses.

Cultivating an institutional culture in which efforts to improve the quality and effectiveness of undergraduate teaching and learning are a focus of sustained attention and inquiry by all members of the campus community is critical. But what are the distinguishing features of such a culture and how are such cultures built, nurtured, and sustained? In this highly interactive 90-minute workshop, we will move through a series of thought experiments, drawing on participants’ experiences in their own settings. Our first goal is to help participants explore the idea of a culture of teaching and learning to identify its critical, defining features. While anthropologists and organizational psychologists have analyzed a wide variety of cultures, the notion of a culture of teaching and learning in higher education is not a topic of extensive scholarly study (Austin, 2011; Hutchings, 1996; Kezar & Eckle, 2000; Massy, et. al, 1994; Sorcinelli, 2014). But we suspect that every attendee at ISSOTL has thoughts about and experiences with the notion and is eager to articulate these (perhaps tacit) definitions, and we will begin by guiding them through that process. Our second goal is to focus on implementation. If we can say what we mean by this notion of culture, how do we build it? What strategies and levers will be most powerful in cultivating a culture of teaching and learning on our diverse campuses? To address these questions, we will invite participants to explore key institutional levels, stakeholders, and mechanisms for change on their own campuses; strategize about opportunities for strengthening a culture that supports powerful and equitable learning for all members of the campus community and across all institutional levels; and explore what indicators of a culture of teaching and learning are most fully developed, which are missing, and what strategies will help address what is missing or underdeveloped. All participants will receive two print resources, one describing a framework for systemic change in undergraduate education and the other posing essential questions and data sources for continuous improvement of undergraduate teaching and learning. As facilitators, we will draw from our experiences working in multiple academic and administrative roles, institution types, and higher education associations. This session addresses the central conference theme by highlighting the importance of promoting a culture of continuous improvement to achieving long-lasting and systemic change to teaching and learning in higher education.

What if your learning community was comprised of ancient Roman senators, deciding the fate of the Republic? How would it feel to have community members determining whether Charles Darwin is truly eligible for the Royal Academy? Who among you can agree to properly define the nation of India? In your day-to-day activities, what would it be like to interact as more than one identity, and to have your alternate identities be invested in weighty historical matters?

The use of role-playing for educational purposes has long been confirmed as a beneficial tool for students’ development of skills in speaking, writing, critical thinking and empathy. Deeply engaged learning results from such immersive experiences as adopting the philosophical and ideological points of view of characters from history. To this end, hundreds of colleges and universities have incorporated the use of Reacting to the Past role playing pedagogy in their academic programs and learning communities.

This workshop will entail attendees’ participation in a very short role-playing game modeled on the Reacting to the Past formula, then describe its use in English and Norwegian speaking college classrooms, First Year Learning curriculums and accompanying programming. The workshop session will subsequently expand on the pedagogy of Reacting to the Past and its broader applications in a wide variety of educational disciplines, address learning outcomes and assessment studies, and conclude with an announcement about a grant-funded opportunity to learn more about, experience and create Reacting to the Past games in Norway in 2019.

A growing body of research into the signature characteristics of arts higher education indicates the prevalence of project work, student-driven active learning and research-based approaches to investigations and processes (Orr and Shreeve, 2018; Shreeve, Sims and Trowler, 2010; Shreeve, Wareing and Drew, 2008). The specificity of arts learning and teaching cultures, rich in experimentation, materiality and practice-based knowledges, can be hard to express, ‘like capturing phosphorus shining on the water at night – you can see it from afar but when you get up close it disappears again’ (Orr, 2016).

This paper asks, what are the ways in which creative practitioners share the detail of their pedagogies? How might they borrow from the creative disciplines when articulating their teaching practice? It proposes a new culture for pedagogy in the 21st century art school.

At the University of the Arts London (UAL), the last two years have witnessed the quiet rise of specific arts practice-based articulations of pedagogy. Educators across the university are starting to harness their creative practice in the design, delivery and presentation of pedagogic enquiry. Examples of work include shoe designs for teaching criticality around issues of gait to footwear designers; a photo essay exploring the fictional concept of arboreal pedagogy; a speculative design workshop to conceptualise studio culture; a series of short narrative films exploring relationships between academics and technicians; a sound art installation documenting student journeys; auto-ethnographic data poems investigating bias in the author’s own academic practice.

This is the result of three strands of work stemming from the university’s central ‘Teaching and Learning Exchange’. This paper will outline the projects: a multi-media, open access teaching and learning journal (Spark); a student-staff co-produced exhibition of artwork made to celebrate enquiry-based learning (Practices of Enquiry); finally outlining the redesign of the postgraduate provision (PgCert and MA Academic Practice in Art, Design and Communication) to foreground arts practice-based research methodologies (Barrett and Bolt, 2010; Gray and Malins, 2010; Nelson, 2013).

Taken together, this work is shifting UAL pedagogic practice towards a visual culture, more aligned to the students’ vibrant and diverse creative output.

The Glucksman art gallery at University College Cork (UCC) is based on main campus (http://www.glucksman.org/). The exhibitions and gallery space have been used as a way of exploring elements of SoTL through an arts in education lens for participants undertaking Teaching & Learning qualifications.

The UCC teaching and learning qualification is delivered fully online, and the practice of utilising elements of the arts in education are still used and have been adapted for the virtual environment. In collaboration with Glucksman Gallery staff, we were interested in exploring whether a virtual art experience could replicate that of an ‘embodied, real life’ experience of visiting the gallery itself.

Participants in the Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education completed an online exercise utilising prompts from the Entry Points to Learning as a springboard for discussing a chosen artwork via a virtual gallery experience. The Entry Points approach:

“…is a particularly good way for teachers to stretch beyond the obvious in approaching a new topic or beyond what they have already being doing to teach a concept. Multiple entry points provide not only different ways for students to gain access to a concept or topic, but also ways for learners to develop multiple representations of that concept or a topic, thereby building deeper understanding” (Kornhaber, Fierros, & Veenema, 2004, p. 79).

Participant reflections and responses to the Entry Point questions were collected via Nearpod, an online, interactive platform. We also collected focus group data from the same participants who engaged in a ‘real live’ Glucksman Gallery experience. The results have led to enabling both those involved as students in the course as well as the authors of this paper an opportunity to frame the differences of teaching online and ‘in person’ through the lens of a virtual and live gallery experience. The results are also informing a conceptual framework around the implications for learning and teaching in virtual vs real world settings.

This paper relates to how arts-based approaches to exploring SoTL enable meaningful experiences across disciplines and contexts in bringing people together for a common purpose. Art can be explored through a disciplinary lens and enables teachers to experience conversations as learner. These approaches have been explored elsewhere such as the Project MUSE, but this is primarily aimed at school children rather than third level education contexts. (http://www.pz.harvard.edu/projects/project-muse)

Across many disciplines, competency is considered foundational to ethical practice. How educators and scholars conceptualize and measure competence shapes the culture of learning (Kahn et al., 2015). Competency is commonly used synonymously with learning outcome (Gehart, 2011; Gruppen et al., 2016; Tekian et al., 2015), thus minimizing the learning process. However, several considerations suggest that conceptualizing it solely as outcome is problematic for both learners and educators (Hussey & Smith, 2008). Students want to know about the process toward learning (Liu, 2016), or the application of their learning to a specific context (Keng et al., 2017); both student abilities and supportive work environments are necessary for transferring competencies to practice (Snoek & Volman, 2014); and practice-based training may play a big role in competency development (Renting et al., 2017). Consistent with this latter point, some educators maintain that outcome is unpredictable and that process is equally important to student development (Benade, 2014). Creating and supporting a learning culture that is inclusive and student-centered demands a critical examination about how we conceptualize competence. We suggest that by expanding competency as outcome and process, scholarly avenues will emerge for better understanding the nature of student development, thereby making competency more relevant and inclusive for education and future workforce considerations.

Given this premise, it is crucial to identify and utilize research and teaching strategies that support process-oriented phenomena related to competency. Our twofold aim in this presentation is: (1) to expound on critical and constructivist pedagogies, both of which emphasize three characteristics that speak to process and outcome-oriented competency development: student-centered, experiential learning, and critical reflection; (2) to present two case studies from Social Work that illustrate how teaching and research strategies can be used hand in hand to exemplify inclusive, student-centered, experiential learning that inspires critical thinking. The first case study, informed by critical pedagogy, describes the use of a photovoice assignment on the development of undergraduate students’ professional identity and perceived competence in macro practice social work. The second case study undergirded by constructivist pedagogy describes the use of Interpersonal Process Recall and dialogical analysis to identify graduate student discourses that shape the learning process involved in simulated family social work role-play. These two case studies exemplify the role of process as an integral part of competency and promote an inclusive learning environment where diverse perspectives are central, thereby demonstrating widespread applicability across disciplines.

Problem-based learning (PBL) is resource-intensive, but promotes skills like uncertainty tolerance, and knowledge application. During curriculum review at two UK Medical Schools, we explored Year 1 medical undergraduates’ learning in PBL.

Threshold Concepts (TCs) are widely-studied across disciplines, less so in Medicine. TCs are integrative, irreversible, and troublesome. They differ from ‘core concepts’ in being crucial for subject mastery, and transformative (“change in knowing, doing, being, and future learning”). Without them, students can get stuck in a ‘liminal’ state of oscillating or incomplete understanding, experiencing uncertainty and discomfort, mimicking understanding.

PBL may enable students to learn Troublesome Knowledge (TK) and TCs, in several ways. PBL itself may constitute a ‘Threshold Capability’. We therefore explored PBL learning in relation to the TC and TK models, and asked what promotes or hinders learning. We compared results between two Schools, to identify commonalities, and explore differences that may arise from variations how PBL is enacted.

Students recorded instances during PBL that meet criteria based on the TC definition (e.g. struggles, frustration, coming together, seeing things differently, aha moments) To avoid bias, TCs were not mentioned. Tutors also recorded any such instances. ‘Straight-after-the-moment’ audio-diaries minimised hindsight bias. Data analysis focused on the TC Framework, but allowed for emergent coding categories and alternative theories. A priori codes included each TC criterion, enablers and barriers to learning; emergent codes included aspects of PBL and subject areas. Codes and themes were compared between Schools.

At both sites, students identified learning instances that involved characteristics of TCs and/or TKs, at multiple stages of PBL. Both content knowledge and PBL skills were identified. Tutor accounts provided confirmation and additional insights. However, the number of areas identified and extent to which they met the TC definition, differed between Schools.

This paper is presented in two parts. First, an interactive presentation demonstrates how to identify Troublesome and Threshold learning areas. Second, we describe the learning areas we identified; and discuss the implications for SoTL in three areas: Medical Education, Threshold Concepts, and PBL. We give evidence of how PBL can help students learn troublesome and threshold concepts, and of methods can enable and hinder this; and discuss methodological limitations of our study. We consider the role of PBL in undergraduate medical curricula at both Schools, and beyond. Finally, we demonstrate the utility and limitations of the TC framework, adding to critical debate about the definition and identification of TCs.

This presentation draws from a larger project in which I seek to develop and share teaching and learning tools for object-based learning in the higher ed. humanities classroom. In the project, I explore strategies that facilitate the development of critical thinking skills with and through things – stuff, material culture, objects. I suggest – through modeling and demonstration – how other educators might incorporate objects, object-centered learning, and the creation of object histories in their own classrooms. Furthermore, I present an argument as to why educators should adopt similar practices: in asking students to consider objects as well as texts, we combat the ‘tyranny of the text’ and address the gaps, silences, and perceived omissions the inclusion of objects responds to. Ultimately, the tools I create reflect on practices, activities, and strategies used in my own classroom and represent my attempt to provide answers to a central question: “what are the possibilities when we no longer rely on written texts as our primary means of learning, knowing, thinking, and teaching?”

Here, I focus on my process for creating a teaching and learning tool based on my curriculum development for an Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies course, a discipline focused on the ways our intersecting identities manifest themselves in social, cultural, and political contexts. Throughout the semester, students were introduced to many of the critical questions feminist scholars have developed as tools for thinking about lived experiences. The course text, Threshold Concepts in Women’s and Gender Studies: Ways of Seeing, Thinking, and Knowing (Launius and Hassel, 2015), builds on an important contribution to SoTL: introducing students to disciplinary ways of thinking, a means of developing critical thinking skills that extend a culture of learning beyond the space of the classroom (Hassel and Nelson, 2012). In five facilitated object lessons, each presented in coordination with a threshold concept, students encountered an object or set of objects that both extended and challenged the concepts introduced in the text. I will share important outcomes of this object-based approach to teaching and learning and discuss the impact of: exploring themes and concepts with wide-ranging impact through a local lens; emphasizing the value of considering objects in discussions related to identities, especially marginalized identities; and pursuing the question “where do texts fail us?” and “how are objects uniquely suited to respond to gaps and silences, and how do we fill them?”

Decoding the Disciplines (DD) emerged as a pedagogic response to supporting students to overcome bottlenecks in learning. Rather than simply invoke students to ‘try harder’ or give them more content, DD seeks to better understand the nature of the bottlenecks and guide students into and through the disciplinary bottlenecks—through iterations of modelling disciplinary practice, opportunities for students to practice these themselves, and formative feedback. But can DD also be a useful approach for inter-and cross-disciplinary issues?

This paper reflects on how DD can be adapted to respond to issues of diversity and intercultural understanding. This relates to the ERASMUS+ project “Decoding the Disciplines in European Institutions of Higher Education: Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Approach to Teaching and Learning,” involving a partnership of 4 European higher-education institutions: https://www.facebook.com/decodingeducation/

The adaptation of DD to these inter- and cross-disciplinary issues presents a number of conceptual and methodological challenges: How do we define diversity bottlenecks? What kind of mental operations are appropriate? How do we model and practice these? And how do we assess them? Drawing on illustrative examples we discuss how the DD approach can be applied to consider diversity in terms of

• curriculum content (what content is included/excluded, geographical origin of content/concepts, etc.);
• students/faculty (diversity of access and participation, diversity across students and faculty, status and discrimination); and
• community (relationships within institutions, relationships between institutions and wider communities, relationships between research partners including communities).

Illustrative examples include

• supporting the access of economically disadvantaged students (often migrants) to learning;
• structuring students’ analytical reading to think ethnographically through the lens of critical theories of risk, environment and intersectional difference, including gender, colonialism, and race, etc.

We discuss these in terms of translating a methodology designed to enhance disciplinary thinking to the inter- and cross-disciplinary issues of diversity in higher education. We look at how pedagogic strategies, such as using virtual learning environments and reading rubrics, can be used within the DD approach to support inclusion and critical thinking related to diversity.