About the Initiative
Background
Supported by The Office
of the Provost and Vice Chancellor & a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Initiative (SoTL) Grant from UW System, The UW-La Crosse SoTL initiative is a broad
effort to help train and involve faculty in the scholarship of teaching and
learning. The goals of the initiative are to
- increase faculty interest and involvement in SoTL
- help faculty develop expertise to do SoTL
- help faculty develop scholarly products in the form of field-tested course materials and teaching practices
As part of the initiative,
faculty will investigate student learning as it relates to class assignments
or specific learning problems in a class, develop new course materials and field
test them in their classes. The projects will result in scholarly products intended
to improve the practice of teaching and student learning.
Current Efforts
- UW-L Classroom Research Program: The purpose of the program is to help instructors develop classroom research skills and engage in scholarly inquiry of teaching and learning. Those selected to participate will take part in a classroom research seminar and undertake a project to investigate student learning in their own classes.
- The UW-La Crosse Lesson Study Project: In 2003-2004, instructors in Biology, Economics, English and Psychology undertook lesson study in one of their introductory level courses. Each group designed, taught, assessed and revised a Research Lesson in the fall semester and will teach, assess and revise the Research Lesson once again in spring 2004. This program is currently being expanded.
- Colloquium
Series: Campus discussions and presentations on the theme, "Investigating Enduring Learning Problems in our Classrooms"
- "I taught it, so why don't my students get it?": Student Preconceptions and Misconceptions in Learning Subject Matter (Initial session held October 3, 2003)
- "I teach it, but students don't want to learn it": Student Motivation (Initial session held November 7, 2003)
SoTL Work Group
- Donna Anderson
- Terry Beck
- Bill Cerbin
- Scott Cooper
- Sandy Grunwald
- Ronda Knox
- Bryan Kopp
- Boon Murray
- Rob Tyser
SoTL Defined
SoTL starts with faculty questions about student learning. Instructors explore those questions through systematic, disciplined inquiry, and then report their findings for peer review.
- SoTL starts with questions of student learning.
- SoTL requires systematic, disciplined inquiry.
- SoTL results in products that can be shared with others.