The learner-centered paradigm departs from traditional teaching models by focusing on students more than teachers and learning more than teaching. Thus, classes are more egalitarian; they emphasize critical thinking, active learning, and real-world assignments. Graduate students in learner-centered classrooms were surveyed about perceptions of their experiences in relation to the key dimensions of the learner-centered paradigm and noted that the approach contributed to their feeling respected as learners, developed their critical thinking skills, and encouraged their self-directedness. Based on these findings, post-secondary instructors are encouraged to experiment with learning-centered approaches to further explore this promising model.
Tag: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Faculty and Student Attitudes about Transfer of Learning
Transfer of learning is using previous knowledge in novel contexts. While this is a basic assumption of the educational process, students may not always perceive all the options for using what they have learned in different, novel situations. Within the framework of transfer of learning, this study outlines an attitudinal survey concerning faculty and student attitudes about transfer of learning. Faculty and students completed a measure of expectations for transfer and potential barriers to transfer. The survey clarifies unique and common beliefs about transfer in order to promote learning beyond a single course. The results show a clear need for faculty to be explicit about their expectations for transfer.
The Co-Mentoring Project: Overview and Outcomes
The Co-mentoring Project matched developmental psychology students with older adult volunteers for an intergenerational learning experience. Students conducted a biopsychosocial life review to increase understanding of older adult development and the continuity in lifespan development. Each student developed a summary paper containing the older adult’s life history, a developmental analysis, and personal reflection. A project description, including the scholarship of teaching and learning, and an overview of its outcomes are presented. The project goal was accomplished; students positively evaluated learning outcomes and displayed a significant increase in knowledge about older adults and aging. Implications for college instructors are discussed.
Reflections on a Decade of Using the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
This article explores lessons learning from a decade of teaching an online course on the politics and psychology of hatred using a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) model. The authors illuminate course etiquette and a critical thinking model that incorporates SoTL into the ongoing fabric of the classroom. In addition, discussion centers on utilizing SoTL to satisfy colleagues concerned about “loss of content” in process oriented courses, and how to engage students in an ongoing, ever-changing, dialogue that can lead them to accept a more inclusive world view.
Exploring the Pedagogical Effectiveness of Clickers
Clickers, electronic response systems, are widely popular in college classrooms and proponents have argued clickers can increase student engagement, active learning, and, perhaps most importantly, student comprehension. Determining whether the effectiveness of clickers justified their purchase seemed warranted. A campus-wide project was developed to address this questions. Five university instructors adopted clickers in one of their introductory courses (psychology, speech, accounting, and education) while teaching a second, control course. Contrary to expectation, attrition was higher and grades were lower in the clicker courses, although these differences were not statistically significant.
Engaging Conversationally: A Method of Engaging Students in Their Learning and Examining Instruction
Under the principles of the scholarship of teaching and learning and action research this study sought to examine how an instructor created and facilitated engagement in his students. The research was primarily undertaken to further define the middle range theory of mutual engagement. Theoretical sampling was used to analyze approximately 100 pieces of data that included instructor notes, teaching observations, feedback from conference presentations, student assessments, and end of semester student evaluations. Engaging conversationally (EC) emerged as the phenomenon that described the instructor’s engagement in the learning process. EC was an ongoing cyclical pattern of inquiry that included preparing, reflecting and modeling. Interconnected in the pattern of inquiry were personality traits, counselor education, and teaching philosophy.
An Apology for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
This paper provides a defense of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). It first examines the roots of SoTL. It then offers examples of SoTL investigations that can be pursued in any discipline and places them within a taxonomy of SoTL questions. It suggests that SoTL might serve as a natural and organic response to the changing landscape and challenges of higher education in the 21st century. The paper closes with resources and suggested entry points into this work for interested faculty and institutions.
Trading Zones: Building Connections to Past Research in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Faculty face significant challenges when moving into scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) for the first time. Perhaps the greatest of these challenges is the act of building connections to past research, both within the individual scholar’s field, and more broadly across the disciplines. This article examines that nature of this challenge, and how it can be partially mitigated through collaboration. The challenge, however, is monumental, and a national mandate must be issued for the creation of a scholarship of teaching and learning database that is easily accessible to faculty across the United States and the world.
The Intersection of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning with Online Course Design in Teacher Education
This study employed a web-based survey investigating graduate students’ perceptions of effectiveness of various learning activities in an online teacher education course designed to teach instructional strategies. Learner-centered evaluation allows for insights into the teaching and learning process, and learner satisfaction is particularly critical in determining quality in distance education. The findings would inform a redesign of the course with the goal to enhance learning, using students as evaluators. The students’ ratings and comments of course activities are discussed, and implications related to course redesign are examined.
Implementing Problem-Based Learning in an Undergraduate Psychology Course
Problem-based learning (PBL) is a small-group pedagogical technique widely used in fields such as business, medicine, engineering, and architecture. In PBL, pre-written cases are used to teach core course content. PBL advocates state that course material is more likely to be retained and applied when presented as cases reflecting “real life” applications of class material. However, rather than traditional lecture-discussion, PBL encourages student autonomy in analyzing cases, with the instructor serving initially as a structuring facilitator before gradually becoming less active as students take more responsibility for their learning. As students proceed through each case, they address four dimensions: What they know, what they want to know, possible causal hypotheses, and questions that can be answered through library research. The PBL cases referred to herein were developed and employed for an undergraduate psychology course, “Psychology of the Exceptional Child.” Students completing this course included psychology, special education, and human service majors and have positively evaluated this technique as a teaching tool.