THE GWENNA MOSS CENTRE
FOR TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS
April 2013, Volume 11, No. 3
Bridges
Reflecting the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning at the University of Saskatchewan
2
New Things
University Teachers Need to Know
By Jim Greer, Director, ULC
After many years as a computer science
faculty member, I can’t remember how
many times people have said to me, “Oh,
you teach computers!,” and my glib reply,
“Actually, I teach people.” Sometimes I add,
“Well, I do try to teach computers too, but
that’s my research,” referring to my work in
artificial intelligence and adaptive systems.
For much of my career, it has seemed
that the most important things I needed
to know when teaching undergraduate
students were the content and pedagogy
of my discipline. Indeed these are very
important things to understand. But there
is more.
As instructors of undergraduate students,
particularly those students in early years
of university, we see in classrooms lots
of perplexed looks, some apparently
uninterested and disengaged, and a few
students who hang on our every word.
We can easily fall into the belief that
every student should want to become
a master of our discipline and ideally
should aspire to the heights of the PhD.
And how we love to teach those who
are just like us – the privileged few who
could one day be graduate students and
protégés and follow in our footsteps. Of
course, we know that many will never reach
the pinnacle of the discipline (as we define
it), and will become part of the unwashed
masses, whom we, sometimes dismissively,
try to shepherd through an undergraduate
degree in something-or-other and for whoknows-what purpose.
Most students come to the university in search
of a career or a job. This may seem to us to
be misguided or wrong-headed, but it’s true.
And for most faculty the only job or career
we know well is “university professor”. In
professional colleges, there can be one or two
other well-known career options, but faculty
are rarely knowledgeable career counselors.
We ought to know more about careers, jobs,
and employment pathways. It is not too
hard to become informed about the array of
interesting careers successful graduates in and
around your discipline manage to acquire.
Keep up to date on where your graduates go –
not just those who go to graduate school, but
those who head off with a bachelors degree
and succeed in finding a fulfilling career. As a
university, we need to make information about
jobs and careers more accessible to faculty,
and as instructors, we need to know more
career paths because our students are greatly
interested in this.
A second thing we need to know is how
to help students come to know more
about themselves - where they can fit
academically and socially in the university,
when they are at risk academically, and
when they ought to be seeking help.
Healthy help-seeking behaviour is often
a foreign concept to students and to
instructors. Students and faculty alike
fall into the “sink or swim” trap. For many
students, starting university is like jumping
in the deep end without a swimming
lesson. Quick intervention can prevent
many drownings. Students come differently
equipped to cope with university life,
academic challenges, and emotional
upheavals. Instructors need to know more
about their students, to identify those
who need the life-line, who need to move
to more shallow water, or those who can
survive or thrive without interference. With
large classes we need technology to help
us discern the swimmers from the sinkers.
Early warning systems, early alert systems,
academic risk profiling, and learning
analytics software systems are hitting the
higher education market with a vengeance.
While there are ethical and privacy concerns
continues on page 2
usask.ca/gmcte
So, I want to leave you with two things to
learn more about: 1) career opportunities
associated with profiling and analyzing
and career paths for graduates in and
students, there are many benefits that
around your discipline, and 2) learning
arise from offering help and encouraging analytics. As a starting point, check out
help-seeking at vital times. Identifying
Ken Coates’ book “Campus Confidential:
who could use a pep talk, who could
100 startling things you don’t know about
benefit from a referral to the writing
Canadian universities “ and also read the
centre, and even who is on their way to
brief article by Malcolm Brown in Educause
a top grade can help us individualize the “Learning Analytics: Moving from Concept
learning experience a bit.
to Practice”. 
continued from page 1
APRIL 2013
VOL. 11 NO. 3
The Gwenna Moss Centre for
Teaching Effectiveness
University of Saskatchewan
Room 50 Murray Building
3 Campus Drive
Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A4
Phone 306 • 966 • 2231
Fax 306 • 966 • 2242
Web site: www.usask.ca/gmcte
Bridges is distributed to every teacher
at the University of Saskatchewan and
to all teaching centres in Canada, and
some beyond. It is also available on
our web site.
About the GMCTE...
Please consider submitting an article or
opinion piece to Bridges. Your contribution
will reach a wide local, national, and
international audience. Contact any
one of the following people; we’d be
delighted to hear from you:
Jim Greer
Director, ULC and GMCTE
Phone 306 • 966 • 2234
jim.greer@usask.ca
Brad Wuetherick
Program Director
Academic Editor (Bridges)
Phone 306 • 966 • 1804
brad.wuetherick@usask.ca
Christine Anderson Obach
Managing Editor (Bridges)
Phone 306 • 966 • 1950
christine.anderson@usask.ca
Corinne Fasthuber
Assistant GMCTE
Phone 306 • 966 •2231
corinne.fasthuber@usask.ca
Views expressed in Bridges are those
of the individual authors and are
not necessarily those of the staff
at the GMCTE.
The staff at the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching
Effectiveness welcomes everyone at the University
of Saskatchewan to visit the Centre and take advantage
of our large selection of professional development
events, courses, resources, and services.
Please visit our website to find out more about
our services and resources for new faculty,
experienced faculty, sessional lecturers, and
graduate students who teach.
usask.ca/gmcte
ISSN 1703-1222
2
Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
Introducing
CAT:
A closer look at the new
Curriculum Alignment Tool
By Carolyn Hoessler, GMCTE
The recently developed Curriculum
Alignment Tool (CAT) offers one approach
for collecting information about a program
as part of a curriculum innovation and
renewal cycle (Mills & Bens, 2012; the
Bridges centrefold for August 2012).
The tool is designed for instructors to
enter information about their courses to
construct an inventory and to identify
congruencies (items 2 and 3 in the figure).
For the inventory stage, CAT asks about
the instructional methods, assessments,
and outcomes of a course. Instructors then
identify congruencies by linking course
outcomes to related assessments and
program outcomes, as well as rating the
intended level of emphasis and depth for
each program outcome.
So why now? Evolving organically, programs
often have grown in number courses,
sprouted new streams, and even new
programs with sporatic trimming and
shaping by instructors and curriculum
committees. For the past decade, however,
global shifts have been tilting towards
a greater focus on degree mobility and
comparability (e.g., The Washington Accord
outlining engineering graduate attributes;
The Bologna Accord on higher education
in Europe), accountability (e.g., Ryan &
Fraser, 2010), and quality (e.g., Smith,
2005). Responding to these trends, the call
has spread nationally within accrediting
bodies, governments, and universities for
curriculum review and innovation that
re-envisions and plots the new curricular
landscape of each program. According
to Peter Wolf (2007), such curriculum
development is ideally data informed,
faculty-driven, and educational developer
supported. To meet this call, however,
requires new information and new skills
New information is also needed as the
traditional approach of counting courses
www.usask.ca/gmcte
3
and enrolment has become insufficient
for understanding what students are
learning and determining if what they are
learning is what matters for the particular
field of study. In seeking to inventory a
program, department committees face
a wide range of potential data points for
curriculum that encompasses the how and
what of the deeply interconnected set of
planned opportunities created for students
throughout their studies (with noted debate
on the balance between how and what;
see Egan, reprinted 2003). Complementing
existing data such as the pre-requisites
listed in the calendar or enrolments, CAT
provides an online tool for requesting
information about instructional methods,
assessment methods, course outcomes, and
depth and emphasis on program outcomes.
Descriptions of threshold concepts,
measures of high impact practices, queries
on incorporating indigenous perspectives,
and other program-specific questions can
either be added (in the updated version
of CAT), or gathered through surveys,
spreadsheets, or facilitated discussions.
Information collection is a mean to an
end: it allows for data-informed reflection,
discussion, and planning as part of course
and curriculum development by individual
instructors and programs. However, such
curriculum innovation and renewal requires
new skills as “Faculty must become adept
at working in teams, facilitating change,
project management, and facilitating
learning… [become] knowledgeable about
curricular assessment and development
processes” (Christensen Hughes, 2007, p.
108). CAT provides an established method
for data collection without requiring
programs to develop their own. In addition,
the curriculum innovation team is intended
to support such skill development
through consultations, coaching, resource
development, session facilitation and
general responsiveness to the questions of
program leaders and instructors.
Gathering information to see courses
and programs in new ways allows for rich
continues on page 4
continued from page 1
individual reflection and collective discussion about the curricular what and how of the
many interconnected opportunities that we work so hard to create each semester. With
our strong commitment to our fields of study and students, we want them to succeed,
and perhaps with insight from CAT and other resources we can figure out the best focus
and way how. 
2013
D2L Innovation Award
in Teaching and Learning
REFERENCES:
Egan, K. (2003). What is curriculum? Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 1,
9 – 16. Originally published in Curriculum Inquiry, volume 8, number 1 (1978): 66–72. Reprinted
with permission from Blackwell Publishers.
Mills, S., & Bens, S. (2012). There is too much on the curriculum plate! Using the A5 model to
streamline, align and redesign. Presented at the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher
Education conference, Montreal. (Described through video at http://www.youtube.com/embed/bczZcC1kFCQ)
Ryan, Y., & Fraser, K. (2010). Education development in higher education. In E. Baker, B. McGaw,
& P. Peterson (Eds.), International encyclopedia of education: Vol. 4 (3rd ed., pp. 411-418). Oxford,
UK: Elsevier.
Smith, B. (2005). The role of United Kingdom organizations in enhancing the quality of teaching and learning in higher education. In K. Fraser (Ed.), Education development and leadership
in higher education: Developing an effective institutional strategy (pp. 16-29). Abingdon, UK:
RoutledgeFalmer.
Wolf, P. (2007). A model for facilitating curriculum development in higher education: A facultydriven, data-informed, and educational developer-supported approach. New Directions for
Teaching and Learning, 112, 15-20.
ONLINE RESOURCES
Quick intro video and resources are available at www.usask.ca/gmcte/CAT
Log in as an instructor with your NSID at http://ulc.usask.ca/CAT
View the Curriculum Innovation and Renewal Cycle video and others at
http://www.usask.ca/gmcte/event-videos
Dr. Sandra Bassendowski, Professor, College
of Nursing, University of Saskatchewan
Dr. Bassendowski’s teaching and learning
innovation, Concept Capture, enhances
learning by creating a multi-dimensional,
open, and digital environment. Concept
Capture focuses on the experience of
undergraduate and graduate nursing
students to create “learning spaces not
places.” Concept Capture is similar to
flipped classroom teaching, but is an
innovative and inclusive variation of the
flipped classroom since it uses multiple
media sources, such as podcasts, Twitter,
blogs, photos, and wikis, rather than
lecture videos. Students are encouraged
to co-create content as part of a
collaborative and co-operative teaching
and learning environment. Bassendowski
uses Concept Capture to connect with
students locally and globally.
She strives to create learning
environments that encourage students
to engage in new and innovative
approaches to advance their knowledge;
in her words, her career as an educator
has been “all about the students.” She
values technology and its tools as
ways to promote and enhance student
learning. Bassendowski’s philosophy
of teaching reflects her beliefs about
the potential of adult learners and the
need for student-centred strategies.
She would like to thank the College of
Nursing and the Gwenna Moss Centre
for Teaching Effectiveness for supporting
innovation in teaching. 
4
Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
Improving Student Learning
The Case for Undergraduate Research and Inquiry
“The human spirit thrives on discovery. We must
integrate discovery into all aspects of learning.
The “Great University” of the twenty-first century
must involve students in exploring our grand
challenges. What might they be? Will we be able to
conquer the next great frontier—the human brain?
How do language, music, dance, and philosophy
shape our beliefs? Will we eradicate disease?
… How will we satisfy our need for sustainable
energy? Will we mitigate climate change? … How
will we preserve the world’s great cultures? … Our
students … must acquire a capacity for creativity
and social ingenuity by tackling questions like
these.” (Samarasekera, 2005)
By Brad Wuetherick, Program Director, GMCTE
by Brad Wuetherick, GMCTE
These are the words of the President
for one of our U15 Research University
peer institutions when she called on the
academic community at her university
to create an enhanced student learning
environment built on discovery, where
students and staff come together as
partners to work on humanity’s grand
challenges. This call was indicative of a
growing movement mirrored on many
campuses around the world to examine
the student learning environment more
closely, particularly in light of the perceived
imbalance between teaching and research
felt by many - staff and students alike - to
be a major issue in higher education.
In the past issue of Bridges I wrote about
the importance of integrating teaching
and research in terms of encouraging an
integrated academic practice that helps
faculty be more successful as teacher
scholars (Wuetherick, 2013). In that article,
I promised to return to the topic about
the importance of integrating research,
www.usask.ca/gmcte
5
teaching and learning in terms of improving
the undergraduate student learning
environment. In making reference to the
growing consensus that undergraduate
research and inquiry is an integral, highimpact educational practice, I quoted
Healey and Jenkins, who argue that
“all undergraduate students in all higher
education institutions should experience
learning through, and about, research and
inquiry ... We argue that such curricular
experience should and can be mainstreamed
for all or many students through a
research-active curriculum. We argue that
this can be achieved through structured
interventions at [individual instructor,
program], departmental, institutional and
national levels” (my emphasis, Healey and
Jenkins, 2009, p. 3). Indeed they argue (in
my words) “that students’ involvement with
research and discovery might indeed help to
define that which makes higher education
higher” (Wuetherick, 2013, p. 3). This
growing consensus around undergraduate
research and inquiry is grounded in the
argument that an undergraduate education
needs to ensure students graduate with
higher order skills that prepare them for
today’s increasingly supercomplex society
and economy, skills that are developed
particularly well through research and
inquiry-based learning opportunities
(Barnett, 2005).
Over the past two decades many higher
education institutions in Canada, the US,
the UK, Australia, and elsewhere around
the world have been trying to increase
the exposure of undergraduate students
to research both inside and outside of
the classroom. Many commonly reported
measures of student engagement, in places
like the Globe and Mail or the MacLeans
university rankings, are very positively
correlated to high-impact educational
practices such as research-based teaching
and learning (Kuh, 2008). Yet, students at
those institutions still report that they feel
“at arms length” from the world of university
research (Brew, 2006, p.52).
Figure 1: Simplified Research Skill Development Framework (From Willison and O’Regan, 2007)
Early scholarship into the role of research in
the undergraduate learning environment
expressed shock at the “level of alienation
that some students expressed” in terms of
their connection to research (Zamorski,
2002, p.419). Students reported feeling
disconnected as stakeholders in the
research process, and perceived that
they have access to research only as a
product. This left students with little
understanding of the nature of academic
work, often reporting difficulties when
they did actively participate in the research
process (Zamorski, 2002). Research in
Canada and the UK has concluded that,
while students’ awareness of research is
high, the proportion of students who report
experiencing research as a key component
of their educational experience remains
low (Turner et al., 2008; Healey et al., 2010;
Wuetherick and McLaughlin, 2011). A high
proportion of students, however, responded
that they learn best when involved in some
form of research or inquiry activity.
undergraduate students and researchers has
demonstrated benefits including increased
confidence, cognitive and technical skill
development, problem-solving and critical
thinking development, clarification of future
career or educational opportunities, an
understanding of how knowledge is created,
and increased understanding of (often
hidden) disciplinary ways of thinking and
practicing (Brew, 2006; Hunter et al., 2007,
Hunter et al., 2010). These research studies
attest to the transformational impact that
participating in a faculty-student research
partnership can bring for both the faculty
and student participants.
The next key development for
undergraduate education, as articulated
by Healey and Jenkins above, is to make
these beneficial research experiences
available to ALL undergraduate students
(Healey and Jenkins, 2009). To do this,
however, will require a focus on bringing
research and inquiry into curricular
experiences in all programs across the
In terms of how undergraduate research and institution. Curricular conversations about
inquiry manifests itself on campus, there is a undergraduate research experiences for
well-established tradition in some disciplines all students inevitably result in definitional
(notably in the sciences) that small numbers challenges associated with defining what is
of undergraduate students serve as
meant by ‘research’. Brew and Boud (1995)
research assistants one-on-one or in small
provide an effective way to conceptualize
groups with a faculty mentor, particularly
undergraduate research and inquiry when
over the summer months. The literature
they discuss undergraduate research as an
exploring the impact of these types of
investigation into the ‘commonly known’
research partnerships between individual
(topics new to the students, but commonly
known to faculty across the discipline),
the ‘commonly unknown’ (topics new to
the student and most faculty across the
discipline, except for a few faculty for
whom that topic is part of their particular
specialty), or the ‘totally unknown’ (topics
new not only to the student but new to the
discipline as a whole).
Fifteen years ago, the Boyer Commission
(1998) called on research universities to
introduce inquiry to all undergraduate
students, starting in the first year, and
to focus on research and inquiry as a
key graduate attribute developed in all
undergraduate programs, regardless of
discipline. If undergraduate research
is understood as learning through the
processes of inquiry into the ‘commonly
known’, ‘commonly unknown’, and ‘totally
unknown’, and as the development of
research skills as a key attribute developed
by all undergraduate students, it is much
easier to plan for high-impact educational
experiences across the undergraduate
curriculum. The literature has many
examples of how curricula have been
developed across different years and
disciplines (for example, see: Healey &
Jenkins, 2009; Spronken-Smith et al., 2011;
Walkington et al., 2011; Zimbardi & Myatt,
2012).
One tool to help plan those curricular
research and inquiry experiences is
6
Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
Figure 2: Research Dissemination Framework (From: Spronken-Smith et al, forthcoming)
the Research Skills Development (RSD)
Framework (see Figure 1), whether in a first
year course, a research methods course in
the second or third year, or a senior capstone
course in the final semester (Willison &
O’Regan, 2007; Willison, 2009). The RSD
Framework invites reflection on the different
dimensions (or facets) of inquiry – including
problem posing and data gathering and
analysis, through to communicating the
results of the inquiry – as well as the level of
student autonomy in directing the research
and inquiry process. The framework has
been used, for example, to help faculty
(individually or collectively) to design a
developmental process where students
might be introduced to research and inquiry
in highly proscribed, closed inquiry (directed
by the faculty member with specific
intended outcomes) and develop increasing
autonomy until the students are able to
undertake open-ended, self-directed inquiry
(Willison & O’Regan, 2007).
As mentioned above, the development
of research and inquiry skills represents
what has been called a key attribute (or
disposition) for the 21st Century graduate
(Barnett, 2005). Research and inquiry skills
have been described, for example, as a
key threshold concept for all students to
develop across all disciplines (Cousins,
2007). For students, however, to develop
all facets of inquiry articulated in the RSD
framework, it is also critically important
www.usask.ca/gmcte
7
to provide students with opportunities to
disseminate their research. Indeed, “(e)very
university graduate should understand
that no idea is fully formed until it can be
communicated, and that the organisation
required for writing and speaking is part
of the thought process that enables one to
understand material fully. Dissemination
of results is an essential and integral part
of the research process, which means that
training in research cannot be considered
complete without training in effective
communication” (Boyer Commission, 1998,
p. 24). This dissemination of UGRI completes
the research cycle for students and builds
key communication skills.
which makes the case for increased
opportunities for students to engage in
public dissemination (both written and
oral) beyond their individual classrooms
(Spronken-Smith et al., forthcoming). A
new framework has been proposed for
understanding UGRI dissemination that
links the extent to which the dissemination
is public with the degree to which students
have autonomy (Spronken-Smith et al.,
forthcoming). This new framework for
research dissemination helps to question,
and plan for, the nature of dissemination
sought for curricular and co-curricular
undergraduate research and inquiry
experiences (see Figure 2).
Willison and O’Regan (2007) suggest in the
RSD framework that with an increased level
of learner autonomy, there is a shift from
the use of lay language to the language of
the discipline. It might be argued, however,
that as the level of exposure (or the level to
which the dissemination is public) increases,
the reverse can happen (Spronken-Smith
et al., submitted). For example, for effective
dissemination at national undergraduate
conferences (which are increasingly common
around the world) where audiences are
multidisciplinary, academic discourse has
to be replaced by language accessible to a
broader public. “Learning to communicate
complex ideas without recourse to
discipline-centred terminology and jargon
requires significant skill development”,
One distinguishing characteristic of
a research university, and one key
characteristic that might differentiate
the U of S experience from that of other
post-secondary institutions in the province,
should be that students learn about
and through research and inquiry. As I
stated in the previous Bridges, “learning
in a research intensive university should
be defined as a qualitatively different
experience than learning in a non-research
intensive university, and challenging all
academic units to deliver on that promise”
(Wuetherick, 2013, p. 4). It is through
targeted curricular experiences in each
program, where students develop research
skills, are challenged to engage in research
and inquiry, and are given opportunities
to disseminate the results of their work
(particularly beyond their classroom), that
we meet the needs of our students moving
forward. 
Hunter A-B., Laursen S., & Seymour E.
(2007). Becoming a Scientist: the role
of undergraduate research in students’
cognitive, personal and professional
development. Science Education. 91, 36-74.
REFERENCES:
Barnett R. (2005). Introduction. In R.
Barnett (ed.), Reshaping the University: New
Relationship between Research, Scholarship
and Teaching. London: The Society for
Research into Higher Education and the
Open University Press, 1-8.
Boyer Commission (1998). Reinventing
Undergraduate Education: A Blueprint for
America’s Research Universities. Stony
Brook: Carnegie Foundation for University
Teaching.
Brew, A. (2006). Research and Teaching:
Beyond the Divide. New York: PalgraveMacMillan.
Brew, A. & Boud, D. (1995). Teaching and
research: establishing the vital link with
learning, Higher Education, 29 (3), 261-273.
Hunter A-B., Laursen S., Seymour E., Thiry
H., & Melton G. (2010). Summer Scientists:
Establishing the value of shared research
for science faculty and their students. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass (in press).
Kuh G. (2008). High-Impact Educational
Practices: What they are, who has access to
them, and why they matter. Washington,
DC: Association of American Colleges and
Universities.
Samarasekera I. (2005). Installation Address.
Edmonton: Office of the President, University
of Alberta.
Spronken-Smith, R. A., Walker, R., Dickinson,
K. J. M., Closs, G. P., Lord, J. M., & Harland, T.
(2011). Redesigning a curriculum for inquiry:
An ecology case study. Instructional Science,
39(5), 721-735.
Cousin, G. (2007). Exploring threshold
concepts for linking teaching and research.
Paper presented to the International
Colloquium: International Policies and Practices
for Academic Enquiry, Winchester, April.
Spronken-Smith, R. A., Brodeur, J. J.,
Kajaks, T., Luck, M., Myatt, P., Verburgh,
A., Walkington, H. & Wuetherick, B.
(forthcoming) Completing the Research
Cycle: A Framework for Promoting
Dissemination of Undergraduate Research
Healey M. & Jenkins, A. (2009). Undergraduate and Inquiry. Teaching and Learning Inquiry.
Research and Inquiry. York: Higher Education
Academy.
Turner, N., Wuetherick, B., & Healey, M.
(2008). International perspectives on student
Healey M., Jordan F., Pell B., & Short C.
awareness, experiences and perceptions of
(2010). The Research-Teaching Nexus: A case research. International Journal for Academic
study of students’ awareness, experiences
Development, 13(3), 199-211.
and perceptions of research. Innovations in
Education and Teaching International.
Walkington, H., Griffin, A. L., Keys-Mathews,
L., Metoyer, S. K., Miller, W. E., Baker, R., &
France, D. (2011). Embedding researchbased learning early in the undergraduate
geography curriculum. Journal of Geography
in Higher Education, 35(3), 315–330.
Willison, J., & O’Regan, K. (2007). Commonly
known, commonly not known, totally
unknown: A framework for students
becoming researchers. Higher Education
Research & Development, 26(4), 393–409.
Willison J. (2009). Multiple Contexts, Multiple
Outcomes, One Conceptual Framework
for Research Skill Development in the
Undergraduate Curriculum. CUR Quarterly, 29
(3) (Spring), 10-14.
Wuetherick, B. (2013). Teaching AND Research,
not Teaching OR Research. Bridges, 11 (2), 3-5.
Wuetherick, B., & McLaughlin, M. (2011).
Exploring student perceptions of research
in the learning environment: A partnership
to enhance our understanding of the
undergraduate student experience. In S.
Little (Ed.). Staff-Student Partnerships in
Higher Education. London, UK: Continuum
International Publishing Group.
Zamorski B. (2002). Research-led Teaching
and Learning in Higher Education: a case.
Teaching in Higher Education. 7 (4), 411-427.
Zimbardi, K., & Myatt, P. (2012). Embedding
undergraduate research experiences
within the curriculum: A cross-disciplinary
study of the key characteristics guiding
implementation. Studies in Higher Education. ,
DOI:10.1080/03075079.2011.651448
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Mark you calendars for the
26-28
AUGUST 2013
Special sessions for new faculty, all new
instructors, and graduate student teachers.
GMCTE Fall Orientation to
Teaching and Learning (FOTL)
Detailed information will be available
closer to the date online at
happening August 26, 27, and 28th.
www.usask.ca/gmcte
8
Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
News
Teaching Award
By Corinne Fasthuber, Assistant, GMCTE
This past winter, with copious amounts of snow on the ground, has proven to be a bit
challenging for some of us, and we are all ready and anxious for a glorious spring.
It is always a pleasure for the Gwenna Moss Centre to publically announce the winners of the
Provost’s Awards for Teaching Excellence, and this year is no exception.
The 2013 Provost’s College Awards
for Outstanding Teaching went to:
• Louise Humbert, College of Kinesiology;
• Tom Yates, College of Agriculture
and Bioresources;
• Shawna Berenbaum, College of Pharmacy
and Nutrition; and
• Greg Marion, Music, Division of
Humanities and Fine Arts, College
of Arts and Science;
• Sue Taylor, Western College of Veterinary
Medicine.
• Pamela Downe, Archaeology &
Anthropology, Division of Social Sciences,
College of Arts and Sciences;
Other 2013 Provost’s Award winners:
• Sean Mulligan, College of Medicine;
• Neil Chilton, Biology, Division of Science,
College of Arts and Science;
• Debbie Pushor, College of Education;
• Keith Willoughby, Edwards School
of Business;
• David Sumner, College of Engineering;
2013
• Regan Schmidt, Accounting for
Outstanding New Teacher;
• Leah Ferguson, Kinesiology for
he Provost’s Outstanding Graduate
Student Teacher;
• Bonita Beatty, Native Studies
for the Provost’s Outstanding
Graduate Teaching;
9
• Christopher Todd, Biology for
Outstanding Innovation in Learning;
• Simonne Horwitz, History for
Excellence in International Teaching.
The Sylvia Wallace Sessional Lecturer Award
winner for this year is Daniel Neilson,
Department of Computer Science.
Excellent nominations were put forth.
Thank you to all who took the time to put
their colleague’s names forward. Please
continue to do so. Our university continues
to recognize excellent teaching and greatly
values the work these teachers do. 
3M National Student Fellowship
Victoria Cowan, 3rd yr – English, Honours, University of Saskatchewan
Victoria currently volunteers as a teacherintern with the Inspired Minds: All Nations
Creative Writing program at the Saskatoon
Correctional Centre. She facilitates workshops for a small group of inmates and edits a publication of inmate art and writing.
Victoria’s work is motivated by a desire to
work with diverse perspectives and pedagogies and by the importance she places
upon reciprocal learning and community
building. Her vision of leadership is deeply
informed by her experiences as a peer
facilitator and co-learner. She is also a firm
believer in the value of taking risks and
stepping outside of one’s comfort zone.
The courage and vulnerability required to
do so become a means to strengthen un-
www.usask.ca/gmcte
• Sheila Carr-Stewart, Educational
Administration for Excellence in
Aboriginal Teaching;
derstanding and, thus, enhance learning.
Experiential learning is at the heart of
Victoria’s leadership practice. Sustained
volunteering with the University Learning Centre’s Learning Communities and
Community Service-Learning programs
has helped facilitate her understanding of
leadership as a non-hierarchical, inclusive
process. Additionally, her experience this
past summer with The Otesha Project, an
environmental organization that empowers youth to make sustainable lifestyle
choices, has profoundly influenced
Victoria’s approach to meaningful leadership and social change as communal and
collaborative in nature. 
The
Philosophy
&Practice of University Teaching
GSR
989
GSR 989 is offered
each year and is open
to graduate students
who have some
experience teaching.
More information
about the course
can be found at
www.usask.ca/
gmcte/courses/
gsr989.
By Wenona Partridge, GMTCE
Learning to teach has been, in my experience, an
exciting yet intimidating experience. It involves
standing in front of a class as a novice teacher
who is also still learning the content. If a novice
teacher is uncertain or excited about content,
it can be difficult to focus on the teaching. This
means that shifting the focus away from content
can enable effective teaching.
In GSR 989: Philosophy and Practice of
University Teaching, students participate in
microteaching lessons that allow them to
teach a non-academic topic to their peers.
The lessons are limited to five minutes and
students must use a teaching strategy they
learned in the class. Students choose their
own topics, and they are able to discuss their
lesson plans with instructors in advance. The
lessons are recorded, so students can watch
themselves teach and perform a post-lesson
self-assessment.
As a student in 989, I led a microteaching lesson
and found the experience incredibly useful. I
discovered things about the way I communicate non-verbally by watching the DVD. The peer
feedback provided invaluable insight into what elements of my teaching are effective and what
I can work to improve.
Other students in the class also found the microteaching experience valuable. Isaac Asiamah,
a PhD candidate with the College of Pharmacy and Nutrition, said,
“I always doubted my success at participatory teaching until after the microteaching.
I now feel that with adequate conscious planning one can always engage students
in the teaching-learning process irrespective of the subject area. How do I teach a
cultural practice to students who are completely alien to my culture and expect them
to contribute? I kept reflecting on ways around this before my lesson. I felt a sense of
achievement to watch the level of students' involvement throughout the videotape. And
most of all, the quality of feedback I had from the instructors and colleagues alike is made
me more confident to start incorporating learning centered teaching in all future class;
something I have rarely done in the past.”
Jean Emmerson, a PhD candidate in Educational Psychology and Special Education said,
“microteaching provided a non-threatening way to focus on learning. Because I was
teaching yoga, something I have fun with in my daily life, I was relaxed and could
observe the students instead of thinking about content. Despite this 'chill' atmosphere,
watching myself on video later was a bit stressful. I had no idea that my face had such
a range of expressions!” 
10 Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
Graduate
Student
Teachers:
Leading Effective
Classroom Discussions
By Amelia Horsburgh, GMTCE
You have to have a clear understanding of the learning objective and
how the learning will be assessed or evaluated before you devise your
classroom learning activity
Whether you’re an MA graduate student
working as a tutorial leader in the
humanities, or a PhD candidate instructing
a lab for the health sciences, leading
effective discussions in your classroom
is not only possible, but extremely
beneficial to students’ active learning
and your own teaching practice. Quality
classroom discussions allow students to
take their learning experience into their
own hands, building and contributing
knowledge in the process. For my own
classroom practice, I have found these three
elements—Objectives, Questions, and
Connections—as essential to fostering
effective discussions.
Before reading any further, consider
your own experiences with classroom
discussions as an undergraduate student.
www.usask.ca/gmcte 11
What aspects made that learning
experience a positive one, or not? Have
you tried using discussion-based learning
in your own classroom as a graduate
student teacher? Has it been an effective
teaching and learning tool, or not? Have
your experiences with discussion-based
learning as an undergraduate student
coloured your own teaching practice? As
an undergraduate student, discussionbased learning was a scary proposition for
various reasons. I didn’t know anyone in my
classes, so forming discussion groups was a
painful proposition. I was also perpetually
ticked-off when I would invariably discover
that I was the only person in my group
who had done the reading assignment.
I felt disconnected from both my fellow
classmates and many of my instructors. That
said, these same frustrations have informed
my own use of classroom discussions, why I
stress the importance of having attainable
and measurable objectives for each lesson,
why I provide guiding questions before
and during discussions, and why I build
respectful connections with my students.
This is how you make discussions a
worthwhile learning activity.
OBJECTIVES
Lay out your cards and show your hand! Tell
your students WHY you include discussionbased learning in the classroom—to
promote deep and active student learning.
Establish your objectives of discussion-based
learning with your students at the beginning
of term. Outline verbally in your tutorial/lab,
and in your syllabus (if you are the instructor
of record), why discussions are an effective
Graduate
Student
Teachers:
Leading Effective Classroom Discussions
learning and teaching tool and the elements
that need to be in place for a discussion to be
worthwhile.
All that said, before you go and plunk a
discussion into your lesson plan, consider
the constructive alignment. Constructive
alignment is made up of three parts:
• Learning Objectives
• Assessment Methods
• Learning Strategies
You have to have a clear understanding of
the learning objective and how the learning
will be assessed or evaluated before you
devise your classroom learning activity. As a
graduate student instructor of a lab or tutorial,
you should seek the help of the instructor of
record to determine the learning objective(s)
for each lab or tutorial session, and how
these objectives will be evaluated or assessed
(lab reports, essays, presentations, etc.).
Once you have decided on your objective
and assessment method, only then can
you determine if a discussion would be an
effective teaching and learning strategy for
that lesson. Case in point, if your objective is
to have students analyze a reading which the
instructor of record is planning to evaluate
via a short quiz the following class, then yes,
small group discussions might indeed be
an effective tool for students to analyze the
reading with their classmates. (See Chapter 7
“Choosing Teaching & Learning Strategies” in
Knaack’s Designing Learning Opportunities for
specific examples of constructive alignment
and various types of learning and teaching
strategies).
QUESTIONS
Once you have established why you use
discussion in your teaching practice with
your students, and you have considered the
constructive alignment of the lesson, you are
ready to plan some guiding study questions.
Having students respond to some study
questions before a classroom discussion
is an excellent way to make sure students:
a) complete the reading, and b) have
synthesized the material to such a degree
that they could respond to your questions.
As Peter Filene states in The Joy of Teaching,
“You will improve discussion not only by
distributing questions ahead of time, but also
by asking students to write their responses.
Instead of the initial awkward silence as they
mobilize their ideas, students will be ready
to speak” (69). Indeed, it is wonderful when
students are prepared and eager to discuss
the topic at hand; providing them with some
questions before the classroom discussion
allows for this to happen.
The questions themselves can range from
all levels of Bloom’s revised taxonomy—
Remembering, Understanding, Applying,
Analyzing, Evaluating, Creating—allowing
students to broach the material through
both lower and higher order thinking skills.
For instance, you could ask your students
to identify (Remembering) a main point of
from the reading (a lower order thinking skill)
and as a follow-up, ask them to compare
(Analyzing) that point with something else
(a higher order thinking skill). Again, the
questions you ask should align with the
objectives of your lesson and how you plan
to evaluate student learning. If you want
students to evaluate the differences between
X and Y (higher order thinking skill) via
classroom discussion, it would be important
that students first be able to define X and
Y (lower order thinking skill) in their study
questions. (See Anderson & Krathwohl for
a detailed discussion of Bloom’s revised
taxonomy).
Effective discussions are built and supported
via connections with your students. How do
you build those connections? You facilitate
student success, of course. For example,
during a classroom discussion, you provide
the strategies necessary for effective
discussion to flourish: phrase your questions
so students feel comfortable responding;
refer to the study questions; ask open-ended
questions; allow students a few minutes to
respond to your questions in writing in their
notes before discussing orally; brainstorm
with students and record responses,
drawing connections in the process; listen
patiently and intently. (See Barbara Gross
Davis’s chapter “Leading a Discussion” in
Tools for Teaching for other strategies and
techniques).
At the end of a classroom discussion, I
make certain to thank my students for
their input into the discussion. Without
their contribution and participation, the
discussion would have been fairly one-sided.
If I have taken notes during the discussion on
the board, it is at this time that I return to the
board and indicate which points align and
enhance the objectives of the discussion. I
also re-state the learning objectives for that
class period and ask the students whether or
not they jive with what was discussed in the
small/large groups.
How do you know if the discussion was
effective and how would you measure for
that? Every few weeks throughout term, I
seek feedback from my students on both
Aside from study questions, there are other
content and delivery. For instance, I will ask
ways you could prepare your students for
my students to anonymously complete a
a classroom discussion. A short one-page
feedback form such as a Stop, Start, Continue
assignment such as a “reading reflection”
(students will list things they want me to
or “reading response” can be an excellent
stop doing, start doing, and continue to do
strategy to organize students’ thoughts
that facilitates their learning). This feedback
on a subject. These written assignments
allows me to make adjustments to my
usually ask the student to reflect on the main classroom practice throughout term and to
point of the reading (Remembering and
meet the needs of my current students. In
Understanding) and to explore what they
regards to assessing student learning, I will
found to be interesting, surprising, confusing, distribute a What, so What, Now What form
and why (Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating,
(students will list what they learned during
and Creating).
class, why what they learned was important,
CONNECTIONS
and where we go from here). After collecting
12 Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
GMCTE Crossword Puzzle
this type of feedback, I can easily assess
whether or not my use of discussion-based
learning is a valuable learning stratagem
and if they are mastering a topic.
GMCTE Crossword Puzzle
You might still be thinking: Well that’s
all just dandy Amelia, but what if I give
students study questions and they are still
unprepared for discussion? What if they just
don’t want to participate? If you address the
three elements for effective discussion—
Objectives, Questions, and Connections—
you have done your part to generate a
successful classroom discussion, where
all parties are well prepared and ready to
engage in thoughtful dialogue. After that,
it’s up to the students. 
REFERENCES:
Anderson, L.W. (Ed.), Krathwohl, D.R. (Ed.),
Airasian, P.W., Cruikshank, K.A., Mayer, R.E.,
Pintrich, P.R., Raths, J., & Wittrock, M.C.
(2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and
assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of
Educational Objectives. New York: Longman.
GMTCE Crossword Puzzle
Filene P. (2005). The joy of teaching. Chapel
1. Acronym for the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching
2. Building that GMCTE is located in.
Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
Effectiveness.
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Gross Davis B. (1993). Tools for teaching. San
Effectiveness.
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upcoming. 4. The GMCTE is a wing of this Centre. (acronym)
Knaack, L. (2011). Designing learning
6. Check
the '____
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which events
10. Society for
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andofLearning
in Higher
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upcoming.
opportunities: A practical handbook for 13. Coffee shop
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educators. Whitby, ON: de Sitter Publications.
17. Name of13.
Director
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curriculum alignment activities. (acronym)
19. In addition to numerous other resources, the GMCTE
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website contains
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online.
20. The Curriculum
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14. Instructional Designers can aid in ____ design,
amidst other things.
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www.usask.ca/gmcte 13
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for Teaching Effectiveness.
A Bridges Interview with our new
Vice-Provost Teaching & Learning,
Patti McDougall
Leaving St. Thomas More (STM) after 14 years, even
just to relocate to the Administration Building a few
hundred metres away, broke Patti McDougall’s heart.
That, explained the new vice-provost of teaching
and learning, is the price for a dream job
that “allows me to marry together
so many parts of my background.”
No doubt that McDougall’s administrative
experience at STM as assistant, associate and
interim dean, will be put to the test as she oversees
the University Learning Centre, the Centre for
Continuing and Distance Education, and eMAP
in addition to being a champion of academic
programming innovation.
But as important to the teaching and learning
portfolio, McDougall explained, is her
research background as a developmental
and educational psychologist.
“One of my interests has been in student experience.
For example, following students as they transition
from high school into university and asking what
factors are involved in whether things go well or
whether there are many challenges. This background
lends itself to this portfolio and is a wonderful
opportunity to continue to develop administrative
skills that match those passions.”
Better supporting students and their experiences,
is what McDougall hopes to accomplish.
“Students come here for many different reasons
and with many different aspirations. We work to be
attuned to those dreams and needs.”
Success will be “getting stakeholders, faculty
and students, engaged and excited about initiatives.
We need to spark interest and share our passion,”
said McDougall, whose excitement and passion
when talking about these issues is obvious. “A lot
of people probably think this, but I do believe that I
have one of the best jobs on campus.”
(OCN, February 13, 2013)
1) What is your favorite book or movie?
I’m a voracious reader. I read every night
as a way to wind down and turn off
the work-side of my brain. Instead of
telling you about a favourite book, I’m
going to cheat and talk about what I’m
currently enjoying. The book is called,
“Lean in: Women, work and the will to
lead.” The author, Sheryl Sandberg, is the
Chief Operating Officer at Facebook. She
writes about why it may be that women
have tended not to step as readily or as
quickly into leadership roles. Sandberg
highlights relevant empirical findings (e.g.,
psychology, gender studies, sociology)
and weaves in her own experiences to
produce what I think is a fascinating
narrative. I have to come clean and say
that this book is getting mixed reviews
and I admit there are some limitations
to her propositions. At the same time, I
like a book that provokes discussion and
debate and this one certainly does. Sheryl
Sandberg asks her readers to consider,
“What would you do if you weren’t
afraid?” How can you not like that?
2) Tell me about one of your best
teaching experiences.
When I first thought about this question,
I tried to think about some of my best
moments in the classroom. I have many
powerful memories of students I’ve
been privileged to work with. In terms
of teaching experience, however, I want
to highlight the amazing opportunities
I’ve had to build and deliver programs
in a collaborative and interdisciplinary
context. I’ve found few experiences
as challenging and rewarding as cocreating courses and programs. My first
opportunity was in the development of
a 200-level course known as “Cultivating
Humanity” (INTS 203 still on offer!). We
brought in 7 different disciplines (including
my own, Psychology) to answer the
question: What does it mean to be human
and to become more humane? This was a
chance to push myself to think about my
own discipline from an entirely different
perspective and to identify how the
content I contributed fit together with the
contributions of others. I was a “teacher”
in this instance but I was also a “learner.”
As a coordinator of this course, I had the
added bonus of attending every class and
watching my colleagues teach at their best.
This experience was invaluable.
3) As a teacher, what do you really want
to impart upon your students?
In her fall installation speech, our president,
Ilene Busch-Vishniac, told the audience that
the work of a university is about changing
lives. I find this premise to be inspirational.
It’s about creating experiences in and
outside of the classroom that lead to
growth and change. I contend that one
of the most important messages we
impart is that university is a place where
students identify their academic passion
and go “all-in” to live it out. Students come
to university with knowledge and skills
(although they might not always realize
how knowledgeable and skilled they are),
both of which have to be developed within
the context of academic disciplines and,
hopefully, across academic disciplines.
Whenever possible, I work to show
students that combining their knowledge
and skills with a passion for discovery can
allow them to change the world in which
we live, and their place in it.
4) There are some recent initiatives on
campus exploring the mentorship of
new faculty in their roles on campus.
What are your views on the importance
of mentorship for faculty and other
14 Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
teachers? Did you have a mentor when
you first started your teaching career?
I had a number of superb mentors,
including a Ph.D. supervisor who
embodied the teacher-scholar model. With
regard to content and ideas for activities
and assignments, she was my go-to
person. I was also able to rely on peers in
my area who were scattered across the
country. It has been my experience that
department heads and undergraduate
chairs can be influential mentors. When I
began in a full-time faculty appointment,
seeking assistance from experienced
academics became common practice for
me, and I received considerable guidance
and support.
Teaching, at its best, is a collaborative
venture. It’s true that the instructor stands
in front of the class alone to deliver
material, facilitate discussion and activity,
etc. But what happens behind the scenes,
before the students enter the classroom?
A new faculty member has to be prepared
to ask for help and advice from those who
are experienced in teaching and learning.
Even if you come as a seasoned teacher
and researcher, being new to the campus
means you still need to figure out the
culture. I know from experience that at
the University of Saskatchewan there are
colleagues who are more than willing to
provide that support. These colleagues are
inside colleges and schools and they are
at the Gwenna Moss Centre for Teaching
Effectiveness. At present, the UofS is
building a more formalized mentorship
program. I am in full support of these
efforts and experience at other institutions
shows that our faculty will benefit from
engaging in these opportunities.
5) As with many other universities and
post-secondary institutions approaches
to teaching are changing at the U of S.
The U of S is trying to establish a learnercentred (student-centred) approach to
teaching and learning as outlined in the
Learning Charter (2010). What impact
do you feel the Learning Charter will
have at the U of S?
Many UofS readers of Bridges will already
know that the Learning Charter was the
first step to articulating and formalizing
www.usask.ca/gmcte 15
our learning vision and our core learning
goals alongside the roles and responsibilities
for students, instructors and the institution.
Rather than asking how the Learning Charter
will have an impact at the UofS, I think the
better approach is to ask how the Learning
Charter has already had an impact, in a few
short years. Two examples immediately come
to mind: I am aware of colleges on campus
that have achieved considerable success in
developing learning outcomes (also known
as learning assurances) as part of program
and curriculum renewal activities. Two that
spring immediately to mind are the Edwards
School of Business and the College of Arts
mean to you for undergraduate students to
learn at a research-intensive institution?
I’ve come to the conclusion that words like
“dichotomy” and “versus” aren’t helpful in
the discourse around how teaching and
research complement one another. In my
view, if you think of a Venn diagram, we
can have overlapping circles of teaching
and research. A focal part of the diagram is
the significant segment in which teaching
and research intersect. This is where you
will find an environment in which “teaching
inspires research and research inspires
teaching,” to quote our University Learning
Even if you come as a seasoned teacher and researcher, being new to the
campus means you still need to figure out the culture.
and Science. In both cases, we could draw a
line between the Learning Charter and the
articulation of college-level program goals.
In these examples, colleges have endeavored
to embed the higher level aspirations of
the Charter into their actions. I also know
that the Learning Charter has served as an
inspiration for the development of other
related documents. Here, I’m thinking of the
Advising Charter, a document ratified by the
UofS Advising Council that will find its way
to University Council in the coming months.
Again, we see that the Advising Charter is
an extension of the Learning Charter in that
it builds on the institutional commitment
to support learning by ensuring that
student supports are in place. I’ll conclude
by saying that the current Teaching and
Learning Committee of Council has made
the implementation of the Learning Charter
a key focus of its work. There’s certainly more
to come. On my wish list of discussions to be
had and work to be done is the question of
whether the Learning Charter might serve
as the back drop to a set of university-level
learning outcomes that are important for
every student.
6) The dichotomy of teaching vs. research
is often referred to as challenge for
faculty, particularly in our current culture
of increased emphasis and pressure to
perform in terms of our research position
relative to our peers. How do you think a
balance between teaching and research
can be modeled at the U of S? What does it
Centre Director, Jim Greer, in a recent Bridges
article. That’s the environment I’m seeking
to cultivate. From the student perspective,
you should know clearly through first-hand
experience that you’re earning a degree from
a research-intensive institution. Students will
see passion in the classroom when instructors
speak about their own work as well as the
work of others in their fields. There is a
detectable energy and an excitement about
the discovery and innovation mission of the
university. Looking around the University
of Saskatchewan you see tremendous
investment in research infrastructure.
I’m thinking here about places like the
International Vaccine Centre (InterVac) or the
Canadian Light Source (CLS) or the Social
Science Research Laboratories (SSRL). I’d like
to see us taking steps to ensure that (where
appropriate and possible), undergraduate
students have opportunities to be involved
in the work that goes on in these facilities
alongside faculty members who are
steering the research. I have been given the
opportunity in the last several months to
work with the Office of the Vice-President
Research to implement an undergraduate
research agenda. I see this work as falling
squarely in that overlapping space of
teaching and research. As we move forward
to pilot both initiatives that are curriculumbased and initiatives that build on the
traditional one-to-one faculty and student
mentorship model, I am eager to see how
it will transform the undergraduate student
experience at the UofS. 
Reprinted with permission from Teaching Perspectives,
Issue 17: Fall 2012, St. Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick
Inclusion
is Killing Us
By Dr D’Arcy Vermette, Native Studies Programme, STU
It would probably be an understatement to
say that Aboriginal peoples in Canada have
had a rocky relationship with education.
Education has been used as a weapon to
destroy Aboriginal cultures . . . but most of us
have already heard of the residential schools.
You often hear people speak of the good
intentions behind residential schools, but
one has to be seriously deluded to think that
good intentions were behind the forcible
removal of Aboriginal children from their
communities and the indoctrination which
was designed to facilitate the destruction
of Aboriginal cultures. Self-centered and
self-righteous thinking perhaps, but the
intentions, like the actions, were not good.
The question then is, are we still deluding
ourselves today? After all, residential schools
were not the totality of the problem. When
you can run roughshod over a People like
that with the stated goal of eliminating them
as a People, there are certain conditions
which need to be fixed beyond the “schools”
themselves.
There is a tendency to link the social
problems experienced by Aboriginal peoples
to the legacy of the residential schools, but
there were social problems and broken and
destitute communities prior to Residential
schools. The causes were identified by
settlers in the early 1800s. A settler report
found that the taking of game and land
were the central causes and that it was the
fault of the settlers. There is a more honest
analysis in those brief findings than is being
offered by focusing on healing “students”
of residential schools . . . as if the problem
exists within the individual students, and as
if the problem will go away after “healing”
has taken place. When have they healed
enough that we can say they will be able
to deal with the ongoing conditions of
colonialism?
Healing is important but to achieve that
result we must also cure the disease. With
all parties so involved in the pursuit of
therapy, there is little room to hold those
who conceived of and orchestrated the
crime to account. Such a choice pressures
us to focus our collective efforts into
looking forward, cleansing ourselves with
“truth and reconciliation” commissions,
and learning to move on, in a kinder more
sensitive manner. The easiest, cheapest,
and most convenient way for mainstream
educators and institutions to do this is to be
more inclusive.
There is a great push to see the inclusion
of Aboriginal peoples into all facets of
Canadian life. The vision is quite simple
and it has been around for hundreds
of years. That vision argues that the
disproportionate poverty and social
breakdown in Aboriginal communities can
be cured by making Aboriginal peoples
more like the “mainstream.” Whether it is
called assimilation, genocide, civilization,
or inclusion the vision has been consistent
for quite some time: Aboriginal people,
as Aboriginal people, must cease to exist.
Now, through inclusion, we are attempting
to do with a smile what residential schools
did with force and abuse. That is, ensure
compliance with the dominating ideology at
the expense of Aboriginal cultures.
There is a picture in the Glenbow Archives
featuring Métis leader Jim Brady at a
protest in Regina, Saskatchewan in 1961.
He is standing next to a sign which read
simply: “Education not Annihilation.” Brady
argued that colonialism is a debilitation that
the western world must free itself from in
order for Aboriginal Peoples to gain some
semblance of liberation. Brady made great
efforts to educate the Métis people about
the root causes of their oppression because
he was trying to avoid annihilation for his
People. Similarly, when thinking about the
nature of Aboriginal education today, the
words of Vine Deloria Jr. can be used to
begin to understand what is really at stake:
Ideological leverage is always
superior to violence. The problems
of Indians have always been
ideological rather than social,
political or economic . . . [I]t is
vitally important that the Indian
people pick the intellectual arena
as the one in which to wage war.
Past events have shown that
the Indian people have always
been fooled by the intentions of
the white man. Always we have
discussed irrelevant issues while
he has taken our land. Never have
we taken the time to examine the
premises upon which he operates
so that we could manipulate him
as he has us.
16 Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
Educators have a choice in what they offer Aboriginal peoples.
We can continue to carry out assimilationist programming or we
can endeavour to empower both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal
peoples to seek out a world in which Aboriginal ways of life are
allowed to thrive.
Ideology is important because our actions
depend both upon how we view our
place in the world and how others view
our place in the world. And, in a world
where equality continues to be limited
to sameness, Aboriginal peoples will be
victims of colonialist ideologies. Equality is
meaningless without an examination of the
context in which it is grounded. Once one
realizes that “economic equality” operates
largely on the presumption that Aboriginal
peoples are (or want to become) marauding
capitalists (and the corresponding realization
that Aboriginal cultures are not capitalist
cultures) the idea of equality is quickly
shattered. Any initiatives that reach out
to Aboriginal peoples in this way do so at
the expense of Aboriginal ways of life. To
pretend that Aboriginal peoples “make the
choice” to crossover to capitalism is perhaps
one of the more common self-serving lines
of rhetoric employed through capitalist
ideology. When your own ways of life are
actively being suffocated, what “choice” is to
be made?
Educators have a choice in what they offer
Aboriginal peoples. We can continue to carry
out assimilationist programming or we can
endeavour to empower both Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal peoples to seek out a world
in which Aboriginal ways of life are allowed
to thrive.
Last year Andrea Bear Nicholas, the
Chair of Studies in Aboriginal Cultures of
Atlantic Canada at St. Thomas University
joined me on a panel about “Indigenizing
the Academy” at the Congress of
www.usask.ca/gmcte 17
Humanities and Social Sciences. Bear
Nicholas summed up the present trend as
follows: “The imposition of alien western
economic values of private property and
entrepreneurship is being marketed as
the salvation of our peoples.” Educational
institutions get on board because it is
essential that they have a role in this
process. If Aboriginal people were to
succeed in such a project without advanced
education, it could undermine the value
of such an education more generally. And
so, governments and universities have
been developing all sorts of initiatives to
try to ensure that they have a role to play
in bringing Aboriginal people into the
“modern” economy.
There is a consequence to such initiatives, a
consequence which is not foremost on the
minds of those employed at Universities.
Every day that an Aboriginal student spends
on campus is a day that is not spent in
their own communities learning their own
traditions, language, and ways of living.
Whether we like it or not, this sends a pretty
clear message about the value of Aboriginal
cultures. Every class that is taught in English
or French is not taught in Maliseet, Cree,
Michif, and so forth. Aboriginal ceremonies
that are brought into the classroom serve
to decontextualize, even parody, and thus
undermine those traditions rather than
honour them (or live them). Every scholar
who advocates for equality but attaches
such notions to western economics, political
policy, government bureaucracy, and
therapeutic strategies does a disservice to
Aboriginal peoples’ struggles.
The response to Aboriginal peoples
has been generated within a narrowly
focused socio-economic framework. As
such, Aboriginal peoples are measured
and studied according to economic and
social indicators. These indicators are not
designed to provide a backdrop for social
and economic practices in some abstract
form but, rather, they are designed to
initiate a particular response . . . a response
rooted in the same ideology which gave
rise to them. That is to say that inclusion is
not a strategy crafted because Aboriginal
people are Aboriginal. Rather it is a strategy
crafted because they continue to be
disproportionately under-educated and
lower in socio-economic indicators. Once
the empirical data comes in, the rest takes
care of itself. It merely becomes assumed
that Aboriginal peoples want to live their
lives like good marauding capitalists and
universities play a complicit role in bringing
about that vision. There doesn’t need to
be a big conspiracy behind such intent. It
manifests through the common ideology of
like-minded people.
The expectation extends to Aboriginal
academics as well. We are expected to find
ways to incorporate ourselves in University
structures in a way which stops us from
complaining and which doesn’t require any
work by or concession from settler society.
That is where symbolic inclusion comes in.
We find those symbols in the tracking of
enrollment numbers, in offering material
in our course which teaches Aboriginal
ceremony (as if that is how we truly
understand Aboriginal Peoples condition in
Inclusion
is Killing Us continued
this world) and by incorporating artwork or
ceremonial shows on campus.
But does resisting these symbolic initiatives
mean that there is nothing else for
academics to do in support of Aboriginal
people? Bear Nicholas provides a path. She
says: “If the Universities really care about the
survival of our cultures, they will recognize
that the restoration of these stolen lands lies
at the heart of our survival as peoples.” She
argues further that class time would be best
used for “teaching First Nations students
to understand and critique the historical
and material conditions of their lives so as
to equip them for the real challenges that
they face.” Indeed, that mission extends to
all students because we can little expect
others to support our liberation if they do
not understand the justification for doing
so. Indeed, if universities really care about
the equality of Aboriginal peoples they will
support our liberation. Nay, they will actively
pursue our liberation.
We have to be very careful about what
messages we are sending. And, I think that
we need to reflect upon what inclusion does
and doesn’t mean for Aboriginal peoples. But
we have to remember that these people we
strive so hard to include are Aboriginal. To
date, inclusion in education has shown little
in the way of helping Aboriginal Peoples
understand their own oppression. Instead,
it merely serves to make them better at
adjusting to (and not complaining about or
otherwise resisting) the devastation of their
lands, communities and languages. Indeed,
we delude ourselves by talking about
the silliest things such as decolonization,
post-colonialism and reconciliation.
“Decolonization” has no context here. It is
not a knowable reality. People often use the
word to indicate that an individual has come
to realize how the world works. The goal is
to ensure that the individual is able to see
the oppressive structures and ideologies
for what they are. But does this individual
decolonized mind change the ways in which
we are allowed to live? If decolonization
is to have any content it must include the
return of Aboriginal lands and the removal
of foreign governing structures. If all we
are talking about is transforming individual
minds, “decolonization” is rhetoric rather
than reality. Similarly, has anyone thought
about what reconciliation means? Last year
at Congress, National Chief Atleo talked
about reconciliation and also mentioned
the legal cases which he believes Aboriginal
peoples are winning. I had the distinct
impression that he didn’t actually read
those court decisions, because it is quite
obvious that the doctrine of reconciliation
set out by the Supreme Court of Canada is
designed to ensure that the colonization of
Aboriginal lands will continue. The Court has
designed rules that undermine Aboriginal
rights for the economic benefit of the
settler society. We also have academics
blowing smoke about this era of “postcolonialism.” I suppose that we all want to
feel unique, to differentiate ourselves from
our predecessors, but do we have to do
it by being so incredibly ignorant about
the continuing pillage of Aboriginal lands,
the continuing suppression of Aboriginal
cultures, and the silencing of Aboriginal
languages? What do these academics think
that colonialism was if our current reality is
“post” that? Worse still are situations where
academics refuse to acknowledge the
material conditions of Aboriginal peoples’
dispossession because it is not uplifting
and they don’t want to create a downer for
the students.
I am not entirely blaming academics who
think that they are talking about something
new and fascinating when they use these
ideas or language. After all, there is an
expectation in the academy that we,
as academics, will do groundbreaking
research. And, let’s face it; talking about
colonialism can get stale. For example,
I had a reviewer of one of my articles
which discussed ongoing colonialism in
Canadian law make the following comment:
“this is a tired debate in relation to which
we have hopefully moved on as a legal
community.” Hopefully, moved on? In order
to move on, doesn’t colonialism have to
actually stop? Or is it just that the message
is too inconvenient for many scholars to
support? Does it require too much work to
actually try and stop colonizing Aboriginal
peoples? Is it easier to bring in an “Elder”
to teach about the medicine wheel or how
to smudge? Rather than ensuring that
our students are prepared for debates
and critical thought about the ongoing
destruction of Aboriginal cultures, are we
happy to simply include a few symbols
around campus?
We have a choice in terms of what we do
in the classroom. Are we going to be a
shining example of a community that is able
to come together to carry out our moral
responsibility? Are we going to advocate
for the return of Aboriginal lands, the
protection of Aboriginal languages and the
extraction of the tentacles of colonialism?
Or, are we going to blindly fall back on the
essence of our colonial nature and merely
ask for greater “inclusion” of Aboriginal
peoples? I leave you with the words of
Zygmunt Bauman: “Moral duty has to count
on its pristine source: the essential human
responsibility for the Other.”1 And, a gentle
reminder that there is in fact “otherness”
in Aboriginal cultures that needs to be
protected. The simple push for greater
inclusion has, as its natural consequence,
the death of Aboriginal cultures. 
Dr D’Arcy Vermette is the Director of the
Native Studies Programme at STU.
REFERENCES:
Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the
Holocaust (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press, 1991) at 207.­
1
18 Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
“Further Exploration of the Dangers of Inclusion”:
A Response to D’Arcy Vermette’s article, “Inclusion is Killing Us.”
by Tereigh Ewert-Bauer, GMCTE
I extend my gratitude to Glenda Abbott, the Coordinator and Advisor to the Indigenous Voices Project, for
the thoughtful conversation she had with me about this article. This article, in part, reflects aspects of that
conversation and the insightful perspectives she shared with me.
I would like to begin by acknowledging
that I am a white woman responding to this
article, and that this response comes from
the place I am right now: what I have learned
so far, from my relationships with Aboriginal 1
friends, family, colleagues, and teachers, from
my knowledge of the history of what is called
by many as Canada, from my education in
whiteness, neo-colonial, and anti-oppressive
studies, from my work on the Indigenous
Voices and wāskamisiwin programs at the
university, from the communities from which
I derive, and from the emotional and spiritual
place I occupy. I acknowledge that I might
misspeak, as a result of understandings that
reflect areas in which I have yet to recognize
and challenge my privileges, perceptions and
interpretations. I humbly invite responses to
my writing, that would expand my current
knowledge and understandings of the issues
that follow.
D’Arcy Vermette challenges current
approaches in education, asserting that
“the simple push for greater inclusion has,
as its natural consequence, the death of
Aboriginal cultures” (p. 19). He identifies at
least three ways in which “inclusion” leads to
such a dire outcome: it is intended to bring
Aboriginal students into the “mainstream,”
Aboriginal students are taken away from an
environment (their communities) that would
otherwise ensure that they learn their own
“traditions, language, and ways of living” (p.
19), and inclusion in “mainstream” education
attempts to create “good marauding
capitalists” (p. 19) which is counter to
Aboriginal world views.
While I have never believed that inclusion
is the only step required to create a more
equitable educational system, prior to
reading this article I naively believed that
there was nothing wrong with it. Vermette’s
article caused me to look first at the Oxford
www.usask.ca/gmcte 19
English Dictionary’s definition of the root
word, “include”: the definitions “to shut or
close in; to enclose within material limits;
to shut up, confine,” and “to contain as a
subordinate element, corollary, or secondary
feature,” made me audibly gasp. Directly,
and indirectly, these parts of the definition
support Vermette’s assertions.
Vermette cites the “taking of game and
land” as the first and root cause of the
“social problems and destitute [Aboriginal]
communities” (p. 18), not, as many
believe, the implementation of residential
schools. In the process of taking the land
and a way of life), First Nations peoples
I would argue that current efforts to create
an inclusive environment are generally
unsuccessful. Aboriginal students (and
other “under-represented” students) still
report that educational institutions are
unwelcoming, and even hostile. How can
this be? Efforts have been made to include
Aboriginal content in curricula. But the
systems themselves, the pedagogies, the
bulk of the content, and many of the values
espoused by “mainstream” education still
propel the Euro-centric machine. I can only
compare mainstream education’s approach
to inclusion to my own undergraduate
experience as a woman. At that time, efforts
were being made to make the university
The intention behind “inclusion” is to make a safe and welcoming
space for those who experience exclusion. But based on my
own observations of elementary, secondary, and post-secondary
institutions, I would argue that current efforts to create an inclusive
environment are generally unsuccessful.
experienced circumstantial confinement,
and then, when relegated to reserves,
physical confinement, and legally imposed
restrictions on spiritual and cultural
practices. Then, young children were
torn from their families and confined
in residential schools whose mission it
was to “kill the Indian in the child.” Now
“with a smile” (18), through inclusion, is
mainstream education trying to “close
in” Aboriginal students, perpetuating the
vision of “assimilation, genocide, [and]
civilization” (p. 18)?
The intention behind “inclusion” is to make
a safe and welcoming space for those
who experience exclusion. But based
on my own observations of elementary,
secondary, and post-secondary institutions,
environment more “inclusive” for women. I
remember taking a history class, and at the
back of every chapter of the textbook, there
was a box, that took up about a third of
the page, that talked about women in that
particular era. But this did not mitigate the
hundreds of pages that spoke only of men;
it did not change the privileging of male
student voices in the class, the treatment
of feminist issues in essays as “soft,” nor
the manner in which the content was
approached and taught. It did nothing to
break the glass ceiling for female students,
staff, and faculty. Did these paragraphs at
the back of each chapter make me feel more
welcome? Absolutely not. And so while
including Aboriginal content in classrooms is
a small step in the right direction, it does not
achieve “inclusion” as is presumably intended.
To make a safe and welcoming environment
for Aboriginal students requires a complete
revisioning of how we educate our children
and young people. “We” say we want
inclusion, but the privileging of Eurocentric educational structures and practices
communicates that Aboriginal students need
to find a way to “fit” into the existing system.
That is, Aboriginal students must assimilate
in order to succeed.
Vermette also points out that Aboriginal
students in “mainstream” education are
losing valuable time in their communities,
to learn “their own traditions, language,
and ways of living” (p. 19). Glenda Abbott,
my colleague with strong community and
cultural connections, confirms that it takes
a lifetime in one’s community to learn these
things. And I would argue that not only does
time in a western education system take one
away from one’s community, that system
also teaches lessons that are antithetical to
many Aboriginal teachings. This is, indeed, a
serious dilemma.
But at that point of Vermette’s article I wished
I could seek further understanding from
him. When the numbered treaties were
being negotiated, First Nations peoples
recognized that their way of life, like the
buffalo of the prairies, was being destroyed
by the newcomers and so some Chiefs 2
required that “education” be included in their
treaty rights, to ensure self-sufficiency and
sovereignty. By gaining a western education,
they would still be able to provide for their
communities, and maintain their autonomy.
The history of the implementation of
western education for Aboriginal peoples,
from the times of treaty negotiation to
present day, is rife with abuse, racism, and
(attempted) cultural erasure. In the spirit
and intention of the treaty agreements,
First Nations’ education should have been
determined by the First Nations peoples.
Instead, governmentally-determined and
church-run schools paved the way for a
contemporary school system that, in many
ways, perpetuates assimilation.
Despite all this, it seems to me that
Aboriginal peoples’ futures, lie, in part,
in the persistence of “two-eyed seeing,”
which is born out of being educated
in two “worlds.” Mi’kmaw Elder Albert
Marshall spoke of Etuaptmumk—“two-eyed
seeing”-- in reference to an integrative
science program. Two-eyed seeing “refers
to learning to see from one eye with the
strengths of Indigenous knowledges and
ways of knowing, and from the other eye
with the strengths of Western knowledges
and ways of knowing ... and learning to
use both these eyes together, for the
benefit of all” (Institute for Integrative
Science). While Marshall’s principle was
generated within the context of science,
it surely captures what some First Nations
Elders and treaty negotiators foresaw
over 150 years ago: that the endurance of
Aboriginal peoples is partly linked to, as
Treaty Commissioner Alexander Morris put
it, “learning the cunning of the white man,”
while at the same time, protecting First
Nations’ languages, cultural practices, and
spirituality.
So where do we stand now? Vermette argues:
“Educators have a choice in what
they offer Aboriginal peoples. We can
continue to carry out assimilationist
programming or we can endeavour
to empower both Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal peoples to seek out
a world in which Aboriginal ways of
life are allowed to thrive. (p. 18)”
Several actions need to be taken to achieve
these results, and I am sure there are some
I am overlooking, and perhaps some that I
am suggesting that are counter-productive
to the desired outcome. Again, I speak only
from my understandings.
First, I think that there is still a place for
“inclusion” in schools, if we look to a
definition that I previously left out, and
that is, that to “include” is to “embrace.” The
word “embrace” can also have a negative
definition, but I’d like to use it here as it is
used when it refers “to clasp in the arms,
usually as a sign of fondness or friendship.”
Not only do I think of an embrace as a sign
of fondness and friendship, but also as an
act of reciprocity, with each side having
agency and equal participation. What would
this look like in an educational setting? Of
course, it would mean an increase in the
integration of Aboriginal content across
the curriculum. But it would also require a
complete revisioning of the curriculum itself,
pedagogical approaches, and the structuring
of the educational institution. These
changes would go beyond attempts to make
Aboriginal students feel welcome (which
really implies that it is not their space), to
creating an environment wherein Indigneous
knowledges and ways of knowledge would,
as Marshal predicts, benefit all.
But Glenda and I agree that inclusion
can only be a first step in the process of
educational reform. Here, I would like to take
up Vermette’s assertion that “if universities
really care about the equality of Aboriginal
peoples they will support our liberation.
Nay, they will actively pursue our liberation”
(p. 19). Part of this liberation comes, as
Vermette identifies through the words
of Andrea Bear Nicolas, out of providing
Aboriginal students with the ability to
“understand and critique the historical
and material conditions of their lives” (p.
18). But I also whole-heartedly believe that
this liberation will need also to come out
of truth in education. Vermette refers to
the phenomenon of “academics refus[ing]
to acknowledge the material conditions of
Aboriginal peoples’ dispossession because
it is not uplifting and they don’t want to
create a downer for the students” (p. 18), and
20 Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
and Ewert-Bauer, 2012). We have to quit
protecting non-Aboriginal students from our
colonial past and present, and we have to
engage in two-eyed seeing.
Indeed, “inclusion” has the potential to kill
Aboriginal culture. It can “close in” on the
child and shut out the culture, language,
ceremony, and tradition. But inclusion, as a
stage in an anti-oppressive strategy, has the
potential to “embrace”: to create “friendship”
between nations, which requires the sharing
and valuing of one another’s knowledges
and world views. This friendship should lead
to an honesty about what has happened,
and is happening in our society, and herein
lies the potential not only for liberation, but
for the evolution of new knowledge, new
relationships, and the restoration of justice. 
ENDNOTES
In this article, I do not use the terms “First
Nations” and “Aboriginal” interchangeably. I
refer to First Nations peoples in reference to
treaty negotiations, but the term “Aboriginal”
when referring to status and non-status, First
Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples.
1
I would argue that the same white-washing
is happening in the K-12 educational
system. Liberation will not only come out
of Aboriginal students developing the
skills to look critically at their own context.
Liberation requires an entire societal shift
that will only occur if non-Aboriginal children
and youth, too, escape the education
that will inevitably produce yet another
generation of colonizers.
“Liberation,” too, will only only occur if
Aboriginal principles in education are
equally valued and taught. For example,
Vermette, raises the concern that a central
purpose of western education systems
are to turn Aboriginal peoples into “good
marauding capitalists” (p. 19), a competitive,
individualistic, materialistic culture. But
the work of Eber Hampton explains many
standards of Indigenous education, one of
which is “service” (Hampton, 1995, p. 21).
The purpose of gaining an education is to
serve one’s community. Some Aboriginal
students at the University of Saskatchewan
a couple years ago, were asked why they
were attending university. It was striking
how many students said that they had come
to university so that they could go back to
www.usask.ca/gmcte 21
better their communities. It was not about
personal gain, about getting a good job, or
a good house—their education was about
service. And I wonder how they are doing
now, in the western system they are in, that
in some ways does teach about social issues,
justice, and service, but that overall promotes
western values.
And so there is an urgent need to nourish
and facilitate the survival of Aboriginal
languages, traditions, ceremonies, world
views, and ways of knowing. Here, I admit
total bewilderment. I have taken the position
that two-eyed seeing, in a world where
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples coexist, is optimal for Aboriginal students, but
this position is contrary to that which posits
that time in a western learning institution
is time taken away from all of the learnings
that come from the community. I do not
know how to reconcile these two positions,
both of which I see as having strengths and
drawbacks. It seems to me that we have
to decolonize the institution, not making
Aboriginal knowledge a “feature” or topic
of interest, but rather that is “gained by
living, working, and sharing with Aboriginal
peoples” (Battiste, qtd in Wuetherick
I acknowledge that there was not universal
agreement among band Chiefs regarding
signing the treaties, and the terms therein.
2
REFERENCES
Hampton, E. (1995) Towards a redefinition of
Indian education. In: First Nations Education
In Canada: The Circle Unfolds. Eds. Marie
Battise and Jean Barman. Vancouver: UBC.
pp. 5-46.
Institute for Integrative Science. Cape
Breton University. From http://www.
integrativescience.ca/Principles/
TwoEyedSeeing/ .
Vermette, D. (2012). Inclusion is killing us.
Teaching Perspectives, 17, Fall, 18-19.
Wuetherick, B, and Ewert-Bauer, T. (2012).
Perceptions of neutrality through a postcolonial lens: institutional positioning
in Canadian academic development.
International Journal for Academic
Development, Vol. 17. No. 3, September 2012,
pp. 217-229.
Exploringthe SoTL Landscape
the
By Brad Wuetherick and Stan Yu, GMCTE
A consensus has formed within growing circles in academia that there is scholarly research
to be done on teaching and learning, that the systematic creation of rigorous knowledge
about teaching and learning is a crucial prerequisite to responding to major challenges facing
academia, that this knowledge must be shared publicly and should build cumulatively over time,
and that the explorations of this area should be conducted by academics from all disciplines, not
just those with appointments in schools of education. (Pace, 2004, p. 1174)
That the consensus Pace speaks of in his
2004 essay has spread across the University
of Saskatchewan has been visible in the
multitude of contributors from all disciplines
who have shared their expertise in Bridges in
the decade plus that it has been published.
That said, how wide spread is the scholarship
of teaching and learning across campus?
In the summer of 2012, the Gwenna Moss
Centre for Teaching Effectiveness (GMCTE),
with support from the Office of the VicePresident Research, undertook a study to
assess the level and extent to which the
scholarship of teaching and learning, or
SoTL, was actively being conducted among
University of Saskatchewan faculty and staff.
The scholarship of teaching and learning
can be defined as, “[the] systematic study
of teaching and/or learning and the
public sharing and review of such work
through presentations, performance, or
publications” (McKinney, 2006, p. 39).
The study also sought to a) categorize
the depth and intensity of said activity,
using a model developed by Trigwell et
al. (2000); b) identify the barriers and
challenges faced by SoTL practitioners, if
any, that arise uniquely from doing this
type of scholarship; and c) to draw on the
existing literature (Hutchings, Huber, &
Ciccone, 2011) to identify best practices
for supporting this type of scholarship at
the institutional level. The study yielded
a campus-wide SoTL community of 284
individuals, spanning every college
and school within the institution, and
consisting of 247 faculty and 37 staff
members. An electronic survey was
administered to the cohort of identified
faculty and staff members with a 70%
response rate (198 respondents). Here,
we summarize highlights from the study
and provide a snapshot of SoTL activity at
the U of S – namely, the level, range, and
type of activity; the sources and types of
support currently available, and the extent
to which SoTL activity can be said to be
University-wide.
SOTL COMMUNITY AND PRACTICE AT
THE UNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWAN
The University of Saskatchewan faculty-level
SoTL community, which comprises 87% of
our total respondents, is distributed across
all types of academic appointment – full
professors (29%), associate professors (32%),
assistant professors (26%), sessionals (6%),
lecturers (5%), and academic programs
faculty (1%). This community also spans
across disciplinary affiliations, including
the professional social sciences (Business,
Education and Law) - 22%, the Health
Sciences (Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and
Nutrition, Kinesiology, WCVM) - 18%, the
Natural and Applied Sciences (Division of
Sciences in Arts and Science, Engineering,
Agriculture and Bioresources) - 14%, staff
respondents (primarily from the GMCTE/
ULC, SESD, and ICT) - 13%, and faculty from
the Division of Social Sciences - 12%, and the
Division of Humanities and Fine Arts - 12%.
In regards to engaging in SoTL practice,
nearly all (94%) faculty respondents critically
reflect on their teaching or their scholarly
work on teaching and learning, while 80%
of reported that their teaching practice or
teaching and learning research has been
influenced as a result. The vast majority
(70% of faculty and 85% of staff members)
regularly read literature on teaching and
learning, with 40% of faculty indicating that
the literature figures in their teaching on a
day-to day level.
For most faculty respondents (47%), their
work in SoTL comprises less than ¼ of
their scholarly work. However, 18% of
respondents (36 individuals) indicated that
SoTL comprised more than three-quarters
of their scholarly research effort. While
half of the respondents indicated that the
proportion has not changed over time, 41%
reported that they now spend more time
on SoTL than they had in the past. Only 27%
of faculty respondents indicated that their
SoTL projects are undertaken collaboratively
more than half the time, while 81% of
staff respondents reported that their SoTL
projects are collaborative more than half
the time. In addition, 49% of faculty and
41% of staff respondents indicated that their
projects were multidisciplinary in that their
collaborators were individuals from outside
their own discipline.
Overall, these findings suggest a healthy,
active and robust networked SoTL
community on campus. From the survey, it
22 Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3
at
University of Saskatchewan
was revealed that the vast majority of faculty
respondents demonstrate the primary
characteristics of SoTL inquiry, namely
critically reflecting on their teaching and
reading the academic literature on teaching
and learning. Furthermore, the quantity of
U of S scholars engaged in, as well as their
level of engagement with, SoTL is increasing
with a substantial amount of scholarship
being conducted in a collaborative and
multidisciplinary fashion.
CATEGORIZING RESPONDENTS’ LEVEL
OF SOTL USING TRIGWELL’S MODEL
Under Trigwell et al.’s (2000) model, Tier 1
SoTL scholars disseminate findings at the
local level – their department, discipline, or
institution – and usually via informal means
such as discussion or peer review of teaching
practices. Inquiry at this level is similarly
informal, typically focusing on the scholar’s
own teaching practice or the quality of
learning of his or her students. Tier 2 SoTL
scholarship often involves dissemination
through conference presentations and
scholarly publications, but tends to be
limited by disciplinary boundaries. Inquiry
at this level takes on some of the systematic
and rigorous attributes of traditional
research while typically being focused on
teaching and learning in the context of a
particular discipline. Tier 3 SoTL scholarship
transcends disciplinary boundaries and
often involves dissemination of results at
a national or international level. Inquiry at
this level follows rigorous research design
practices and is often aimed at uncovering
evidence with general applicability across
institutions and disciplines. It has been
found in the literature that the extent of
dissemination is strongly correlated with the
type of inquiry being done, with broader
dissemination levels being associated with
more rigorous research design that tends to
focus on teaching and learning in a transdisciplinary context (Schulman, 2004).
www.usask.ca/gmcte 23
When examining the level of dissemination
amongst U of S SoTL scholars, it was found
that 60 faculty (55%) and 6 staff (26%) have
published on SoTL, in refereed journals or
books. Similarly, 91 faculty respondents
(53%) indicated that they have presented
their work on SoTL at a conference. Of
those respondents, 73% have presented
at a disciplinary conference, 54% have
presented at a disciplinary conference
focused on teaching and learning, and
58% have presented at a teaching and
learning conference. Among staff, 50% of
respondents have presented their SoTL
findings at a conference, of which 46% have
presented at a disciplinary conference, 46%
at a disciplinary conference focused on
teaching and learning, and 92% at a teaching
and learning conference. Following Trigwell
et al.’s (2000) model, it was found that 95
of the identified SoTL scholars (48%) are
practicing at a Tier 1 level, 55 (or 28%) are in
Tier 2 and 48 (or 24%) are conducting Tier 3
SoTL work. This distribution conforms to the
hierarchical nature of the model.
BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES
The visibility of SoTL work within faculty
and staff respondents’ home department
has implications for the degree to which
individuals conducting SoTL feel recognized
and supported by their respective
departments. The survey gauged this
question and our results found that only 55
respondents (28%) felt their involvement
in SoTL is visible to their departmental
colleagues, while 79 respondents (40%)
felt that their work in SoTL has little to no
visibility to their colleagues.
This lack of perceived visibility of SoTL in
academic departments was found to be
related to two other factors affecting SoTL
practice: barriers and legitimacy. In the
survey, faculty were asked to respond to
two open-ended questions. The first asked
them to identify any barriers, challenges,
or concerns that have stemmed from
their involvement in SoTL; the second
gauged their opinion on whether their
research, scholarly, or artistic work on
teaching and learning is perceived to have
legitimacy as a “real” form of scholarship
according to policies and standards of
their respective departments. It was found
that the responses for both questions are
intimately linked. Of the responses received,
75 respondents (38%) cited that the lack
of perceived legitimacy for their SoTL
work was the primary barrier facing SoTL
practitioners. Specifically, one of the primary
challenges cited by faculty is that their work
on SoTL is not recognized as a “real” form
A complete grasp of the range of SoTL activity on campus is essential if
it is to be advanced as a practice and a form of scholarship.
of scholarship by their departments, and
when it is recognized, it is often relegated to
the status of a “soft” or “fluffy” publication,
or “secondary” or “sideline” research,
and is valued much less than traditional
disciplinary research.
A further barrier identified by respondents
is that their contributions in SoTL are neither
recognized nor considered in their case for
promotion or tenure, echoing the “visibility”
and “legitimacy” findings described above.
Consequently, this works to discourage
respondents’ desire to further pursue this
type of scholarship. A third commonly
indicated barrier was lack of time and
difficulty balancing one’s work in SoTL
with all of the other teaching, disciplinary
research, and administrative obligations
and responsibilities that come with the
role. While failure to recognize SoTL as
“real” scholarship was deemed as a barrier
for nearly two-fifths of faculty members in
our study, the remaining respondents felt
in varying degrees that their department
recognizes and values SoTL as a legitimate
form of scholarship. Of these respondents,
some noted further that the legitimization
of SoTL has been a recent development in
their department, while some stated that
this degree of legitimacy remains contingent
upon whether their work is published in
peer-reviewed venues or not.
In summary, while reported challenges are
pervasive and substantial, there is tentative
evidence to suggest that the institutional
and cultural factors affecting SoTL work are
beginning to shift.
BEST PRACTICES TO SUPPORT SOTL
The work of Hutchings, Huber, & Ciccone
(2011) has identified eight key practices
for supporting the scholarship of teaching
and learning at the institutional level.
These key practices are designed to align
the educational goals of the institution
with the principles of the scholarship of
teaching and learning. Rather than being
strictly prescriptive, the practices offer a
guide that can be tailored and adapted in
ways befitting each individual institution’s
priorities and culture. They are as follows:
• Understand, communicate, and promote
an integrated vision of the scholarship of
teaching and learning
• Support a wide range of opportunities
to cultivate the skills and habits of inquiry
into teaching and learning
• Connect the scholarship of teaching and
learning to larger, shared agendas for
student learning and success
• Foster exchange between the campus
scholarship of teaching and learning
community and those with responsibility
for institutional research and assessment
• Work purposefully to bring faculty roles
and rewards into alignment with a view
of teaching as scholarly work
• Take advantage of and engage with
larger, increasingly international
teaching commons
• Develop a plan and time line for
integrating the scholarship of teaching
and learning into campus culture, and
monitor progress
• Recognize that institutionalization is a
long-term process
The heterogeneous nature of SoTL activity
at the U of S has implications for these
practices, particularly the first, to understand,
communicate, and promote an integrated
vision of the scholarship of teaching and
learning. The critical factor in the success of
this practice is congruence between how
administrators understand the nature and
aims of SoTL work being done and how the
practitioners themselves understand it. A
complete grasp of the range of SoTL activity
on campus is essential if it is to be advanced
as a practice and a form of scholarship.
Several of these institutional strategies
identified by Hutchings et al. (2011) are
already in place (with varied levels of success
and at various stages of development) at
the University of Saskatchewan. The Centre
for Discovery in Learning and the Gwenna
Moss Centre for Teaching Effectiveness serve
as focal points for many of these initiatives,
where dissemination venues such as Bridges
or the annual U of S SoTL Symposium have
helped provide a venue for communicating
with the campus community about SoTL.
Other departmental and college level
initiatives are in place to support research
on teaching and learning as well, including
the College of Nursing’s Centre for the
Advancement of the Study of Nursing
and Interprofessional Education (CASNIE),
the (formerly titled) Educational Support
and Development unit in the College of
Medicine, the Centre for the Advancement
of Accounting Education in the Edward’s
School of Business, and the newly approved
School for Professional Development in the
College of Engineering. Much of what has
been achieved on campus, however, has
been realized with very little sustained (base
budgeted) support from the institution. 
REFERENCES
Hutchings, P., Huber, M. T., & Ciccone, A.
(2011). Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Reconsidered: Institutional Integration and
Impact. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
McKinney, K. (2006). Attitudinal and structural
factors contributing to challenges in the work
of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
New Directions for Institutional Research, 129
(Summer), pp. 37-50.
Pace, D. (2004) “The Amateur in the Operating
Room: History and the Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning,” , 109:2 (October).
Trigwell, K., Martin, E., Benjamin, J., & Prosser,
M. (2000). Scholarship of Teaching: A model.
Higher Education Research & Development, 19
(2), 155-168.
A full copy of the final report submitted to the
Office of the Vice-President Research, the Research,
Scholarly and Artistic Works Committee of Council
and the Teaching and Learning Committee of
Council is available on the GMCTE website at:
http://www.usask.ca/gmcte/resources/library
24 Bridges, Vol. 11, No. 3