Assignment 2 – Reading Reflections
Ana Maria Barral
National University, Costa Mesa, CA
Of the many statements that jumped at me during the reading of the materials, one by Randy
Bass was particularly relevant for me: “the discourse surrounding the scholarship of teaching...will be (a
discourse) based on disciplinary protocols of investigative practice calibrated to the idioms of particular
campus and institutional cultures.”
This quote touches on several aspects of my “problems”: they are not only related to the teaching
of biological sciences, but also reside within a rather unique, accelerated method of instruction that is one
of the defining characteristics of my university and hence of my teaching. This compressed but very
focused method of instruction is a necessary context when I discuss my scholarship. Moreover, it
becomes part of my “problem” and by embracing it as part of the research it provides additional potential
to enhance the knowledge of learning. My main problem, therefore, could be summarized as: “How to
achieve deep learning of basic biological concepts and skills in accelerated undergraduate courses?”
These problems originated from the “what works” question perspective (per Pat Hutchings’
taxonomy). Similar to Randy Bass, I have struggled with unhappy students (both in courses taught by me
or by instructors I supervise), and tried to implement novel approaches that would result in better student
learning. Here of course, enters the next issue: how do we know what works? And what does “to work,”
mean in the learning process? I come from a laboratory research background where variables are easy to
control, and experiments could be repeated multiple times in identical settings, Education research is very
different for its personal and ethical aspects as well as its relative lack of control. To learn more about
research methodologies in the scholarship of teaching is one of my main goals of this residency.
“What works” has however slowly started to move towards “what is.” The defining moment for this
took place in the summer of 2013. I had been teaching a course of anatomy-physiology, and emboldened
by new knowledge and resources, I included a number of hands-on in-class activities to practice difficult
concepts. In the pursuit of deep understanding of physiological concepts I drove some of my students
literally to tears. I was mystified. A week later I was fortunate to participate in a bioinformatics workshop
that supposedly did not require previous bioinformatics knowledge. However, I was not familiar with the
system of reference (fruit flies), and was overrun with a deluge of information I could not absorb. I had
several “deer in the headlights” moments, struggled mightily to follow the lectures and practice sessions,
and finally understood what my students had gone through.
“What is” not something I have addressed as an action item in my scholarship yet. It is something
I think about a lot, reflect on, and discuss with my colleagues. Carl Wieman talks about the “curse of
knowledge” and how hard it is for experts to understand the thinking of novices. Eric Mazur started on his
peer-learning journey when he realized how shallow the physics knowledge of many students was in a
traditional classroom. After that summer of 2013 I followed some of the tenets in Bass’ writing (without
having read him), such as focusing on the aspects I considered most important for longer time, and being
more intentional with my teaching. I also decided to prune the course content, removing information that
“has always been taught” but did not add much to the important aspects of the class.
But for now my main interest is still how to assess student learning and evaluate teaching
effectiveness as the two sides of the same coin. The former is subject to many uncontrolled parameters,
from student previous knowledge to personalities and learning styles, resulting in the same intervention
having variable effects. Yes, there are times I miss the uniform nature of cell lines or inbred mouse
strains! As for the second, I feel this is where larger data sets and statistics may provide answers beyond
the realm of anecdotal evidence.
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When reading articles about new teaching approaches I am sometimes reminded of clinical trials
of new drugs. A small pilot with a carefully selected patient population and under heavy monitoring results
in statistically significant benefits. The same drug, used in large multi-institutional trials in the general
population, struggles to replicate the effect. This aspect is something I would like to discuss during the
residency. While teaching scholarship can be done at small case, and as an ongoing, iterative process,
has a positive and enriching effect on teaching per se, how to expand (shall we say “scale up”) so we
achieve convincing data for publication and grant purposes?
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Jennifer Brigati
Maryville College, Maryville, TN
The primary “research problem” I plan to focus on during the Biology Scholars Program Research
Residency is related to student attitudes toward, and engagement with, active learning techniques. The
SOTL literature clearly indicates that active learning helps students to master content, and preliminary
data collected by my research mentor indicates that certain types of active learning increase students’
self-reported engagement in the biology classroom, but the reality is that many student don’t like active
learning. Is there a way that we can get these students to have a better attitude toward active learning?
If students are given explicit instruction on the value of active learning, will they be more engaged in class
when active learning techniques are used?
To address my “problem” I know that I will need to use a variety of types of data, some of which
will be qualitative. As a scientist, the transition to using qualitative data is difficult, and I appreciated the
line in the Rowland and Myatt article, “perhaps the most wrenching transition that a natural scientist will
have to complete as they move into SoTL is the switch from a positivist, reductionist, and realist outlook
to one that allows for context-constructed realities.” I also think the idea of “triangulation” (collecting at
least three different types of data to see if they all point to the same conclusion) as discussed in the
Classroom Action Research (Mettetal) paper is one that I will use as I plan my methods. While this is
certainly something I’ve done in my bench research projects, I had never heard the term “triangulation”
before reading this article. Another theme that I noticed in several of the articles was an emphasis on
using your own classes for your SoTL projects; this concerns me somewhat because my project will not
be in my own classroom, or even at my own institution. That said, my research mentor has a strong
rapport with the faculty in the program where I will be completing this research project, and we won’t be
asking the faculty to change their teaching practices in any way, so I’m hopeful to avoid the pitfalls
mentioned in the Rowland and Myatt article.
I think my research question is a “what works” question. We know that active learning works, but
we want to know “what works” to improve student attitudes about active learning and to improve their
engagement in class when active learning techniques are used. This could morph into a “visions of the
possible” project in the future, once we know if telling the students about the benefits of active learning
“works” to improve their attitude.
I found that these reading selections made me feel inspired, but also a bit nervous. I am making
this transition to become a SFES (science faculty with education specialties) because at my teachingintensive institution it is difficult to maintain a productive bench-science research program, and I love
research too much to give it up. While my Dean and Division Chair are extremely supportive, some of my
colleagues definitely look down on SoTL as a “lesser” form of research. I think it will be very important for
me to build a network of peers and mentors while I am on my sabbatical this year, so that I will have a
support system as I continue SoTL activities at my institution upon my return.
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Natalia Caporale
San Francisco State University, San Francisco, CA
The problem that I am interested could be phrased as “Can/What metacognitive interventions
aimed at improving the accuracy of student perception of their own knowledge and understanding as well
as their learning process improve their performance in biology science courses?”
This question has at least two sub-items that I plan to explore:
- What interventions are effective at increasing students’ awareness of their own knowledge and learning
processes?
- What elements of such interventions might be more effective for different student groups? I am
particularly interested in exploring variants that might work best for different types of underrepresented
minorities, with the hope of increasing self-efficacy and retention.
As I was reading the 4 articles, certain topic resonated: (1) Conducting research on topics that
you are passionate about and that resonates with you. (2) Identifying a field/sub area to focus efforts on
that is aligned with your institutions’ goals. As someone trained in neuroscience and the biological
mechanisms of learning and memory, exploring students’ understandings of how we learn and how
students use this to guide their own study process is close to my heart. As a Latino woman, raised in
Argentina for most of my life, I am particularly interested in exploring how culture and ethnic background
affect this process. Given the large percentage of Hispanic students at my university, I hope that my
research will help my department better understand their struggles and ways in which we can improve
their chances of success in the college studies.
While reading, I also recognized that given my newness to the field, I should start small and
maybe consider running a CAR project (new term I just learnt!) before trying to look at something as
complex as my original idea.
Looking at Pat Hutchings taxonomy, I struggled somewhat to fit my question into just one. Part of
it fits into the category “what works,” as I want to explore different kinds of metacognitive interventions,
while part of it is “what is” as I want to know how their own understanding of the learning process affects
their learning. In many ways, my question is more than one and I know it will need to be parsed into
smaller items to be able to explore them in a rigorous manner.
One of the things that resonated with me as I read most of the articles was: “Yes! That is me. I
want to do this but I feel so lost as to how to start, where to start. How do I do this properly?” I must admit
that I felt somewhat relieved to see so many of my questions being discussed as common issues of
people starting in this field, and gave me hope. In particular, I found the paper by Rowland and Myatt
incredibly helpful.
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Pratima Darr
Georgia Gwinnett College, Lawrenceville, GA
The problem that most compels me is investigation of the means for increasing buy-in for active
learning and establishing that this increases performance on major collaborative assignments like group
presentations and papers. An approach that speaks to me is repeated exposure to the “growth mindset
versus fixed mindset” paradigm advanced by Dweck, with assessment of its acceptance among students.
The level of acceptance could be mapped to the grade earned on a group presentation. In the context of
my focus course, internationalized biology II for non-majors, this correlation would be sought with regard
to their grade on the capstone presentation that is 20% of the course grade. I also plan to use
questionnaires that address effectiveness according to students and a pre and post exposure to the
widely employed student assessment of their learning gains (SALG). These varied sources can offer the
triangulation that is necessary to effective Classroom Action Research according to Mettetal.
Major themes from the Bass paper that resonated with my problem and vision have to do with
students’ desire “to appear knowledgeable” or learning to perform to expectations and the need from the
teaching standpoint, to start from day 1 addressing what students already know or believe with regard to
the discipline/subject matter. The idea of the importance of finding problems worth investigation as
opposed to necessarily solving problems is also one I found compelling. Based on these impressions, I
was inspired to create my own specific learning goals for my focus course as opposed to the schoolmandated learning outcomes and to define the one that I would prioritize over others and then channel
more effort in to that. Since my focus class involves non-majors in an internationalized biology class it is
clear to me that working toward the advancement of citizen science has to be my top priority. This goal is
one that I feel can be extended even to the teaching of biology majors though perhaps, not as much could
be done with it without sacrificing essential content.
I feel that my problem and/or approach is at the intersection of “what is”, “what works” and
“visions of the possible” as elaborated by Pat Hutchings. The “what is” element connects to my perception
of student resistance to active learning; and the “what works” relates to the use of a particular strategy to
address this resistance. The “visions of the possible”, I see, as my desire to create identification among
students with their role in the context of the course towards their development of a sense of being citizen
scientists.
As an SFE, I’m not worried about acceptance, as my institution is one that is focused primarily on
teaching. What I’m more worried about is the implementation of my classroom action research. As a
relative newcomer to SoTL, I face some of the same issues as colleagues at more research-centered
institutions with regard to making a paradigm shift in defining and designing research. That being said,
the assigned papers helped immensely with regard to creating a foundation and providing resources. I am
at a point where I need to go up for promotion next year but have had no publications to my name in
many years. The readings provided me with ideas for journals to look in to, to get published relatively
quickly.
A very particular issue that I face personally with regard to my focus course, is assessing the
effectiveness of internationalized learning goals which decidedly depart from discipline-specific ones. A
recent presentation I made at a local teaching and learning conference drew my attention to my plight as
being in a small minority in this regard. My institution chose internationalization of the curriculum as its
Quality Enhancement Plan target in accordance with a Southern Association of Colleges and Schools
mandate. I’m only one of two faculty who chose to pioneer internationalized learning in a science class
that doesn’t involve study abroad and the only one of the two of us, who totally flipped this class. I feel
that internationalization in science is not the most straightforward thing to implement but I’m trying to
embrace the challenge and am hoping, as I get myself better networked, to find others who are doing
something similar.
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David Gondek
Ithaca College, Ithaca, NY
How would you describe your “research problem(s)” to the Research Scholars group?
The question I wish to tackle with my SOTL focus is ‘What is the effect of a focused college
preparatory seminar and delayed entrance into the undergraduate biology major on undergraduate
students which arrive with low math placement scores’. We at Ithaca College have a problem which is
shared among many schools in that a relatively high attrition rate from the major is felt most significantly
by academically or economically disadvantaged students. These students tend to come from low-income
homes or inner city schools or are of minority status. We have retrospectively looked at our course
assessments and identified a strong correlation between low math placement scores on our intake exams
and fail/withdrawal from fall semester freshman Biology. Our school has recently introduced an institution
wide freshman seminar series as part of their residential college branding/marketing of the school. We
plan to take advantage of that existing framework to try and address our “problem”. Focused on
academic skills and blended with sciences students will learn how to successfully navigate college before
entering their major coursework. We also have some data to support that students entering the major at
a later time will do significantly better in the freshman biology series of courses. We believe that
decoupling the transition to college and first major biology class will lead to more prepared students,
higher success in their proposed major, and boost this population of students retention within the major.
What theme(s) based on your readings, resonate with your “problem” and/or your proposed
approach to address your problem.
The core of our crisis/problem was a low incoming number of declared majors and a higher than
average withdrawal from the first Biology course in the fall of their freshman year. These occurred in a
year simultaneous with the colleges exalting the highest ever diverse freshman class. The college is
pushing hard to increase our diversity on campus but I believe they are just setting the students up to fail.
It took a little data digging to put it together but there is a strong correlation between the low math scores
(particularly among minority students) and the lack of success in our freshman bio major courses. I most
strongly resonated with Dennis Jacobs case study on an alternative General chemistry course when he
writes “my empathy went out to these students and I felt a responsibility to address what I saw as an
injustice”(Hutchings, 2000) I could not ethically stand aside and watch us do this to the students for yet
another year. The department was willing and championed with the dean my taking immediate action
and restructuring some of the courses. In regards to the SOTL of this endeavor, I am LOST when it
comes to the correct data to collect to really show these changes had significant impact. I am hoping
exam scores will be sufficient, but I liked the triangulation approach discussed in the classroom action
research reading.
Based on Pat Hutchings article, what taxonomy would you use to describe your research question
and why?
The taxonomy with which I would describe my question would be “visions of change” (#2). Some
of these students face roadblocks due to their lack of preparation from sub-par high schools. These
students do not deserve to be set-up for failure in their first term of college. We must find a better way to
serve these students and adequately prepare them for the academic rigors of college level science
courses without prolonging their college education.
Do you have any questions/concerns/comments that have evolved from your reading?
I can’t wait to learn more!! I feel like I am flying blind. I am making sweeping changes to avert
what I see as a social injustice to the students. I am unsure how to collect qualitative data to help
document the impacts of these changes and demonstrate their validity.
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Marisa Isaacson
Pace University-NYC, New York City, NY
Our Biology Department’s capstone course, Introduction to Research in the Biological Sciences,
is a unique writing-enhanced course that is completely non-content driven. Instead, this class focuses
solely on enhancing the student’s ability to think critically, write scientifically, and communicate effectively.
Students are required to write an original NSF-style research grant proposal. One of the first steps in
writing their grant requires that they generate an original biological research question and then develop a
hypothesis regarding that question. In order to do this they must utilize their critical thinking and analytical
skills to review the relevant scientific literature. The “problem” I have found is that students consistently
struggle to generate novel, unstudied research questions. Part of this problem may be their inability to
read and understand the scientific literature. Therefore, I wish to assess whether this course significantly
increases students ability and comfort in developing original research questions and subsequent
hypotheses. This study is particularly important to me as many of the students in this course go on to
conduct novel research in my laboratory and the laboratories of other faculty in the department. It is our
hope that this course helps students to become scientifically literate and that they will implement the skills
they have learned not only in their professional career but in their day-to-day lives.
Not surprisingly, I have several learning goals and outcomes associated with my course.
However, the Bass article resonated with me. Do I really know whether my students (and what proportion
of them) are meeting my learning goals for the course? Which learning goals are the most important and
do I teach primarily toward those goals? Specifically, what is the intent of each assignment? I inherited
this course when I began teaching at Pace University two years ago therefore, I spent some time after my
first year evaluating each assignment and the purpose behind each one. I altered or eliminated some
assignments that I felt were not “intentional” enough. However, I need to do this again, and specifically
determine if each assignment is aligned with the learning goals that I feel are most important. In
particular, does each assignment help the students acquire the skills needed to develop original research
questions and hypotheses?
My research question is based on the “what works” taxonomy of questions. I am interested in
determining if the type of course I teach, a purely non-content driven course, enhances student’s ability to
develop original research questions and hypotheses. My biggest question in designing this study (and
any educational study) is which methods are the most appropriate to use? As discussed in the article by
Rowland and Myatt I must learn to use more qualitative methods that cannot always be properly
controlled as I am accustomed to with basic science research. This inability to control every method is
new and somewhat intimidating to me.
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Samantha Parks
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA
In the past year, I have begun to incorporate case studies throughout my lectures in Biology
(majors and non-majors) and Cell and Molecular Biology courses. Next semester, I will begin introducing
the cases in general Microbiology courses. The courses range from 48 to 155 students per lecture, and
therefore the use of case studies varies within the courses. However, the cases are included on exams
and therefore are required learning in the courses. The case studies are typically well received by
students and are clear ways to encourage participation and discussion. I had previously used concept
mapping, short stories and discussion, but found that those methods were not engaging all students, and
were therefore not useful for all students. Many of the discussions seemed more didactic, and were not
engaging in student learning and discovery. My research problem is thus to pursue the usage of case
studies and to determine their effectiveness in student engagement, learning and retention. Additionally, I
aim to address the effectiveness of current assessment strategies based on the case studies to
determine if such strategies are adequately measuring student learning.
While reading the articles, it became apparent that my recent teaching experiences are not
terribly unusual. There does seem to be a focus on teaching evaluations and the student experience.
However, there is also a strong drive to encourage innovation and improve teaching efficiency. Although
these are complementary factors by which to facilitate instructional improvements, there are times when
teaching innovation and teaching evaluations seem to be at odds. By focusing on the use of innovative
case studies to drive student learning, I may be increasing student interest, but that does not always
correlate with learning and retention. Therefore, there is a true research problem to discern whether the
case studies are educationally effective and appropriate for the courses in which they are used.
Based on my interest in assessment, I believe that the “what works” question is definitely
applicable to my research problem. That is the root of the research problem, to determine whether the
case studies are being used in an effective educational manner. However, since the method in which the
case studies are employed is a problem-based learning method, it is also a question of how students
work to correlate concepts and practice with the learning of basic biological concepts. As such, this
research problem may eventually shift towards the development of a new series of practices to best used
case studies in varied class settings.
I am excited to further develop my research problem and to see where it evolves during the
process. . I want to ensure that the research is framed appropriately at the outset to enable clear
assessment and reflection on the research process. Based on the readings, I want to ensure that that the
research is done in a clear and meaningful manner, such that there are benefits to both my teaching
practices and my students’ learning experiences and retention.
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Tracy Ruscetti
Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA
How would you describe your “research problem(s)” to the Research Scholars group?
Description: I team teach a large (220 student) lab intensive Cell and Molecular Biology course that is
the last in the Introductory Biology Series. We have flipped the classroom and where we have looked,
our students are showing significant learning gains over the traditional classroom model. For each
learning objective in the course, we have a number of assessments in which we can measure student
proficiency. I have also developed a method to quantify the cognitive difficulty of any assessment. I can
compute a difficulty score and a proficiency score for each assessment. With this data, I hope to answer
the following question:
1.
Does student proficiency on an assessment correlate with the cognitive difficulty of that
assessment?
I expect to see an inverse correlation between cognitive difficulty and student proficiency. I have
created a mock data set to illustrate how the data might look for five learning objectives (Figure 1). Each
data point is one assessment and I have three assessments for each learning objective. I drew a
regression line through the assessments associated with a single learning objective. The slope of the
regression line informs the overall difficulty of the learning objective and predicts at which cognitive level
students would “fail” (Figure 1, LO1, LO2, and LO5). If the slope of the regression line is too shallow, one
might conclude that the learning objective has been met and less time and course resources should be
spent on that learning objective (Figure 1, LO3, triangles). Conversely, if the slope is too steep, that
might suggest that either the learning objective is beyond the scope of this course or more time and
course resources need to be devoted to help students achieve that learning objective (Figure 1, LO4,
inverted triangles).
In addition to examining the correlation of assessment difficulty to student proficiency, I could also
use this type of analysis to calibrate new assessments. Assessments that fall too far off regression line
can be modified. This type of comprehensive data analysis can be applied to any course. In addition, we
could correlate difficulty and proficiency of one learning objective across the curriculum. I can imagine
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comparing the slopes of assessments in individual courses to determine if a particular learning objective
was being scaffolded appropriately. This type of analysis could potentially help identify “holes” in the
curriculum.
What theme(s) based on your readings, resonate with your “problem” and/or your proposed
approach to address your problem.
The theme I felt best exemplified my feelings about SoTL was the theme in Randy Bass’ article in
which he describes redefining his teaching based on “teaching more directly to the learning objectives I
value most”. In our course, we are expected to prepare students for upper division courses. That
mandate comes without much guidance and so we have taken it to mean that we need to include many
learning objectives and competencies. We feel that we are doing too much but without comprehensive
data, we are unable to make evidence based decisions about what learning objectives can be modified or
eliminated. Reframing this problem into a data analysis problem so that we can SEE what learning
objectives are problematic and refocusing our efforts to be most effective will allow us to “teach more
directly” to the most important learning objectives.
Based on Pat Hutchings article, what taxonomy would you use to describe your research question
and why?
I think I am looking at a “what is” question that bleeds into a “new conceptual framework for
shaping thought about practice”. This would be an ad hoc study in which I collate information rather than
design assessments based on a hypothesis. It takes a phenomenological descriptive approach to our
existing assessment data. However, I think this study could be a new conceptual framework because
these data could potentially inform how we think about this course, prerequisite, and/or subsequent
courses. Moreover, this could be an analysis tool that when broadly applied could inform curricular
design decisions.
Do you have any questions/concerns/comments that have evolved from your reading?
I’m particularly concerned about my lack of knowledge of the literature in SoTL. When reading
the assigned articles, I got lost when authors described or discussed seminal work in the field. I’m also
worried that my ignorance of the primary literature will allow me to reinvent the wheel (an endeavor I’m
very familiar with). I also think the language, style and cadence of this type of scholarly writing is specific
to SoTL and mostly foreign to me. So, I’m not sure what has been done and I find it difficult to grasp the
nuances of the literature. In my biological research, I could visualize the process I was thinking about. I
don’t have the tools or the framework here to conceptualize and contextualize the information as I read it.
That may come with practice in reading these types of articles but it is terribly frustrating right now.
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Jessica Santangelo
Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
My “research problem” revolves around strategies to help the “second peak” in my courses. The
grade distribution for almost every exam, and final course grades for almost every section of our
introductory biology course, are bimodal - there are the students who do well (A’s/B’s) and the students
who do not (D’s/F’s). I’m interested in that second peak - what is different about them and what can I do
to help them succeed?
My hunch is that there are issues not just with prior knowledge (specifically lack thereof in the
second peak) but with metacognitive skills development. The students who do well seem able to selfdetermine what they know/don’t know and subsequently self-regulate in terms of their approach to
studying or learning material. With respect to the Rowland and Myatt article, I think my theme would be:
My research focus is on strategies to build and develop students’ metacognitive skills to facilitate student
learning and success.
I like this theme as a research focus because it is applicable not just to the specific course I teach
but to any courses in our department, and, frankly, the University. In addition, because I teach primarily in
the introductory course series, if I can determine what works in terms of metacognitive skills development,
I could influence not just a student’s success in my course, but success across all the courses they take,
retention as a STEM major, retention as a student at Hofstra, and success in their future career. I also
feel like I should not be a content-deliverer - Google is much better at delivering more content, more
quickly, than I ever could. My role should really be as a framework builder, helping students navigate,
interpret, evaluate, and apply content.
In terms of a taxonomy, this research focus fits primarily into “what works” with some spillover into
“what is”. My primary focus is: What are the best practices to develop metacognitive skills, i.e., “what
works” in this respect? Underlying that question, however, is understanding what is going on from the
students’ perspective, i.e., “what is”? Part of my interest is documenting what skills students come into the
class with and documenting what the student experience and outcomes are if they a) enter the class with
those skills, b) enter the class without those skills and do not develop them, and c) enter the class without
those skills and do develop them. While the “what is” component is not my primary interest, it could be
important in guiding the “what works” question that is my primary interest.
The only concern I currently have is narrowing my focus to a clearly defined intervention that is
addressable. There are so many options for interventions I could perform and ways to assess the
outcomes. I’m thankful to be part of this community with which to discuss and refine ideas as I embark on
this project.
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Ilse Silva-Krott
Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale, VA
The core of my research problem is that I want to know if students learn what they are supposed
to learn in a course, how they learn it (which learning activities are most successful) and what do they
actually learn in the courses I teach. I realize these are three different and somewhat independent
inquiries. Randy Bass articulated my questions about teaching and learning in his explanation of the
“Inverted Pyramid”, as I ask wonder about student learning in my courses.
I am planning to begin my SoTL research endeavor investigating online science courses by a forprofit school, intensive 5-week classes. The main reason for my choice is that my full time institution is
updating and changing all my assigned courses (Blackboard, 100% online) for the fall, and I will not have
seen the course shell by the time of the research residency. I plan to pay close attention to these new
courses and then investigate questions of teaching and learning in these courses in the future.
My experience from teaching 5-week intensive upper level science courses (genetics,
immunology, ecology, evolution) is that I have good students who succeed and not so good students who
struggle and often withdraw. Grades follow a bimodal distribution. Courses emphasize active class
discussion. My inquiry would begin with “What it looks like” taxonomy, a description of what happens in
selected courses. Initially the study would be based on review of completed courses (online courses are
archived and accessible). I would like to analyze courses taught by different instructors for similarities and
differences in faculty –student interaction in discussion, teaching materials and achievement of learning
outcomes, such as grades for specific assignments. Assignments would be re-assessed using a common
rubric.
Secondly I imagine a prospective study which would include student surveys – first in my classes
(pilot) and then possibly in classes taught by different instructors. I could envision student surveys at the
beginning and end of class which look at their perceived and thus reported learning, in comparison to
actual data (the online classroom management system provides lots of data about student and faculty
activities) as well as some sort of evaluation of faculty interaction (data, but also a qualitative assessment,
for example questions using higher levels of critical thinking, or supporting and presenting current
scientific literature on the topic).
Based on the results of these studies, future research would look then at manipulation of factors
in a class focusing on areas where improvement might truly lead to better learning and student success.
Assigned readings were informative and certainly got me started to look at additional literature about
online learning and assessment of online learning activities. I am also working with the University’s
research department in order to develop a research plan. I would like to see the case studies introduced
by Pat Hutchings. I am struggling with the fuzziness of social science, but hope that I shall come to trust
research methods to provide valuable results for a good study. I am worried that my research plans are
not enough detailed, because of my lack of basic understanding of SoTL, and feel it is very easy to get
side tracked, and follow a multifaceted line of inquiry which will then not allow collection of the right data
for a valid analysis and limit the quality of conclusions.
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Amanda Simons
Framingham State University, Framingham, MA
In the past several years, Framingham State University has been involved in a project to redesign
several of our introductory STEM courses. As a part of this, faculty were asked to consider Ken Bain’s
characteristics of a Natural Critical Learning Environment and think about how to incorporate such
elements into our courses. One of these characteristics is that students have the chance to try, fail, and
try again before they are judged on their success.
I’ve used “multiple-try” quizzes in various formats in several of my courses. I have hypothesized
that giving students multiple chances on quizzes will encourage them to continue to practice using skills
and applying content knowledge, even if they don’t “get it” the first time. I’m interested in determining
whether the multiple-try quizzes improve student outcomes.
This also aligns with work from one of my computer science colleagues at Framingham State
University. My colleague and I have had a number of discussions about student grading and ways to
using exams and grading not as the final goal but as a tool to promote learning (i.e. can the exam or
assignment influence learning outcomes, in addition to assessing learning outcomes).
This study would fall under the “what works” category that Hutchings described.
As I read through the articles, one theme that resonated with me was the difficulty in designing
well-controlled studies. As a scientist, it’s straightforward enough to design an experiment and include
the proper controls, but it’s challenging for me to understand how to properly design a SOTL study.
Mettetel’s discussion of triangulation of data was helpful, as was the Classroom Action Research Rubric,
which listed examples of methodology. The multiple-try quizzes do not address all of the course content
objectives in my course. Thus, I’m considering evaluating the quizzes by comparing content that was
covered on the quizzes to content that was not covered on the quizzes, but I’m interested in feedback
regarding the validity of this type of comparison as well as suggestions for other sources of data.
I found the reading useful in terms of providing practical advice for beginning SOTL research.
The Mettetel paper was particularly useful for me in providing concrete examples of methodology, as well
as the rubric (I like figures and tables). However, I also found interesting Rowland and Myatt’s paper,
including the description of a good research question vs. a vague research question, and the idea of a
“research stream”. I must admit I’d been thinking of SOTL research as a unified field, and I think this will
help me focus and clarify my research objectives.
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Tatiana Tatum-Parker
Saint Xavier University, Chicago, IL
How would you describe your “research problem(s)” to the Research Scholars group?
All too often, substantial numbers of students in college fail to demonstrate sufficient
understanding of biology and chemistry to proceed beyond the introductory courses, general biology and
general chemistry. In fact, the retention of majors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics
(STEM) is a national problem. Over 15 years ago research across seven universities showed 44.1% of
STEM majors switched to non-STEM courses before graduation (Seymor and Hewitt, 1997).
Unsatisfactory student performance in these college-level general biology and chemistry courses remains
a critical area of concern. I have a few questions regarding this issue. First, how do scientific reasoning
skills and college mathematics skills compare directly to two different STEM courses, introductory biology
and introductory chemistry? Do they have the same significance? Can the two skills be used to predict
student success?
I want to compare numerous predictors; ones with a long history of success at predicting course
grades (SAT score, GPA), and the Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR). The
LCTSR is designed to probe students’ ability to apply aspects of scientific and mathematical reasoning,
proportional reasoning, control variables, probabilistic reasoning, correlational reasoning, and
hypothetico-deductive reasoning (Lawson, 1992).
What theme(s) based on your readings, resonate with your “problem” and/or your proposed
approach to address your problem.
One theme is that none of my colleagues view the scholarship of teaching and learning as ‘real’
scholarship. They do not believe that there is any value added to the research and that it should not be
held in the same regard as traditional research. I believe that many of my colleagues actually do engage
in the process, but don’t want to admit it to themselves or others.
Based on Pat Hutchings article, what taxonomy would you use to describe your research question
and why?
I believe that my research question would be classified under the taxonomy of “what works.” The
reason I chose this taxonomy is that I feel we will be trying to figure the ‘best’ way to identify students that
could benefit greatly from support courses to help ensure that they stay in the STEM fields.
Do you have any questions/concerns/comments that have evolved from your reading?
The only concern I currently have is what we will really do with the data once we have it. There
are so many options for interventions, and so few resources, I hope that we will be able to do something
to assist our students .
I am so grateful to be part of this community with which to bounce ideas off of other likeminded
individual dedicated to their students success.
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Claire Trottier
McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
How would you describe your “research problem(s)” to the Research Scholars group?
I plan to use a recently redesigned third year immunology laboratory course as a basis for a
study. One of the aims in this course is for students to have an experience that resembles working on a
real research problem in a lab. I would like to measure the impact of this course on our students. I want to
better understand student perceptions of biomedical research at the start of the semester, and to track
how elements of the course influence their views. Do their views change? What influences their
perception of research? Do their views become closer to the views of “experts”? A possible research
question could be: how does this course affect our students’ perception of how biomedical research is
conducted?
What theme(s) based on your readings, resonate with your “problem” and/or your proposed
approach to address your problem.
I found it helpful to read about different approaches to educational research: personal reflection,
classroom action research and the scholarship of teaching and learning. I also appreciated the
introduction to the variety of questions and methods that can be used in education research. At this point I
am not ready to commit to a specific question or approach, but I have a much better grasp of the steps
that I will be undertaking during this program. In addition to familiarizing myself with the procedural
aspects of education research, the readings prompted me to reflect on different factors to consider when
choosing a research question. In particular, I was struck by Bass’ idea to consider learners’ previously
existing knowledge and assumptions as a starting point for inquiry. I would like to include some aspect of
this in my research.
Based on Pat Hutchings article, what taxonomy would you use to describe your research question
and why?
I found it a bit difficult to fully understand the four levels of taxonomy described in this article. I
think my research problem most closely fits my understanding of the “vision of the possible” category. The
example in the article describes a study examining sociology students’ views about sociology and their
own role in sociology itself. I am interested in how students view scientific research, and the process by
which these views change (or not) during the course of a specific class. I chose this category because I
see parallels between the example in the article and my research question.
Do you have any questions/concerns/comments that have evolved from your reading?
I think that I will need to use qualitative methods to tackle my research problem, and I am a bit
intimidated by this prospect. I was relieved to read the article by Rowland and Myatt, since they explicitly
state that this is a common fear. I am excited to read and learn about qualitative methods, and I am
hopeful that I will be able to find collaborators to help me with this aspect of my planned research.
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