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The emergence of the scholarship of teaching and learning (commonly shortened to SoTL) as a viable alternative to traditional scholarship should come as no surprise to readers of Change. In recent years the magazine has featured the work of Lee Shulman, Pat Hutchings, Mary Huber, Eileen Bender, and others who have traced the trajectory of this movement. Hutchings and Huber also have begun to map out what an intellectual “commons” generated by this scholarship might look like—including case studies of strong work done in and across a wide variety of disciplines.
None of these scholars, however, has any illusions as to the obstacles facing those who wish to pursue such scholarship—obstacles erected most conspicuously by committees on tenure and promotion, which may be loath to credit anything other than the scholarship of discovery, to use Ernest Boyer’s term for basic research.
Such obstacles have persisted despite the very strong case that has been made for teaching as a legitimate object of scholarly inquiry. Like conventional scholarship, as Lee Shulman has pointed out, the scholarship of teaching and learning, while differing from the scholarship of discovery in its focus on the classroom, calls for a systematic investigation of a research question, a survey of the best scholarship on the subject, going public with one’s findings in the form of conference presentations and scholarly publication, a “critical review and evaluation” by peers, and the use of such research as a foundation for further work in the field.
But while candid about the various “balancing acts” necessitated by a dual allegiance to the scholarly disciplines and to SoTL, the latter’s advocates spend less time on obstacles to change created by the nature of institutions themselves. What distinctive challenges await those of us who teach in public two-year colleges and who wish to engage in SoTL, for example?
Obstacle One: Attitudes Toward Scholarship and Research at the Two-Year College
While logic would suggest that teaching-centered institutions such as two-year colleges would welcome any national movement that paid serious attention to classroom instruction, the reality is otherwise. Where the fight at research-centered universities and colleges is to valorize teaching as a legitimate subject of scholarship and research, the struggle at two-year colleges is to convince faculty and administrators that intellectual inquiry and scholarly exchange are activities appropriate to the mission of the institutions.
In a sharply utilitarian culture, shaped most recently by calls for accountability and shrinking state support, reflecting on one’s teaching and sharing that reflective work with a community of scholars are activities that often are perceived as, at best, luxuries and, at worst, distractions from the teaching mission of the college. When teachers become researchers, they assume the role of knowledge-makers, adding to what is already known about a subject. But two-year college faculty rarely see themselves in this role. Instead, they are likely to view themselves as transmitters of knowledge or translators of specialized material to novice learners.
Since tenure and promotion at two-year colleges are typically linked to teaching excellence and college service (required committee work and advising duties), scholarship and research fail to carry the urgency that they do at research-intensive institutions. In the five years during which I (Tinberg) edited a peer-reviewed journal, Teaching English at the Two-Year College, I cannot recall one inquiry from a two-year college author on the brink of tenure regarding the readership and editorial policy of the journal—a routine question from authors who are preparing for tenure review at four-year institutions.
Obstacle Two: “Pedagogical Solitude”
If scholars of teaching and learning wish to become true knowledge-builders, they need to “go public” by sharing their findings and methods with colleagues beyond their own institutions. It is only through such an exchange that this scholarship can begin to assemble its own central “texts” and construct foundational thinking about teaching and learning that transcends local circumstances.
But a two-year college teacher/scholar typically works in what Lee Shulman has called “pedagogical solitude.” With work routines driven by a relentless teaching schedule that leaves little time to meet with colleagues (two-year faculty usually teach five sections per term), and with conference travel money modest at best, two-year college faculty struggle to break through that solitude, despite the opportunities for exchange afforded by electronic forums such as listservs and blogs.
What Two-Year College Faculty Bring to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
So I do not minimize all the challenges facing two-year college faculty who wish to engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning. But I propose a sea-change in the way they view their work. Inquiry, reflection, and critical exchange ought not to be “add-ons” to that work; rather, these need to be at its center (with all the recognition for such work that institutions can provide). I’d even add that without such introspection and collaboration, teaching becomes more labor intensive, not to mention less rewarding, because it is less informed.
But such an argument does not touch upon two critical reasons that two-year college faculty need to engage in SoTL. The first is to represent in a capable and authentic way the range of student accomplishment, from the mediocre to the truly sterling, that we see at the two-year college. With the bulk of these students fully capable to holding their own at four-year colleges, they can achieve great things if faculty keep the bar high and construct the scaffolding that makes student success possible.
The second reason is to raise the intellectual profile of two-year college faculty and teaching within higher education and among the public at large. With the opportunities afforded by small classes and close attention to individual students’ learning needs—both hallmarks of two-year-college instruction—faculty at these colleges have extraordinary advantages as teacher/scholars. And their students—most of whom have working lives outside the college—bring with them richly textured experiences that could provide equally rich contexts for study and research.
A Potential Area for Research: Integrative Learning
Two-year college faculty have another advantage over their four-year colleagues when embarking on the scholarship of teaching and learning: the mission of the two-year college. With its focus on general education as well as the promotion of workplace and civic literacy, the faculty who teach there have few disciplinary axes to grind. They are not generally expected to publish papers on conventional scholarship rooted in specific disciplines, relying on discipline-sanctioned methods of research. They are instead defined as teachers first and specialists second.
While that fact may at times contribute to the crisis of professionalism to which I alluded above, it may also make it easier for faculty to engage in new forms of scholarship that require crossing disciplinary boundaries, as SoTL does. If, as Mary Huber and Pat Hutchings of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching observe, “one of the great challenges in higher education is to foster students’ abilities to integrate their learning across contexts and over time,” then two-year colleges have a significant role to play in “mapping the terrain” of a new educational landscape.
I’m not saying that this task will be easy, not by a long shot—especially in light of the various pressures placed on two-year colleges to conform to the curricular norms of transfer institutions and to prepare students for the exigencies of the workplace. But it makes perfectly good sense to expect a two-year college faculty member in biology to ask—as Crima Pogge at the City College of San Francisco has in her Carnegie-supported research project, “Is There A Need for ‘Culturing’ Ecology Education?”— whether there is a way to determine the impact of students’ diverse backgrounds on their views of ecological conservation. It makes just as much sense for Mike Burke, a mathematics faculty member at the College of San Mateo, to ask his students to apply scientific thinking—in the form of mathematical models—to such pressing social problems as global warming and population growth. Both Pogge and Burke have taken to heart the goal of creating opportunities for students to, in E.M. Forster’s famous phrase, “Only connect.”
The same integrative model of teaching and learning that can be the two-year college’s contribution to the scholarship of teaching and learning might also serve as a powerful means of promoting improved articulation between two- and four-year institutions. If students emerge from integrative learning experiences at the two-year college with an enhanced ability to solve problems by drawing upon perspectives and methods from a variety of disciplines, they are primed to succeed at four-year institutions that have a commitment to interdisciplinary general education. Moreover, faculty at two- and four-year institutions who practice and study integrative teaching and learning have a fruitful basis for dialogue and an exchange of ideas.
Three Carnegie Scholars Report on Their Research
To demonstrate what the scholarship of teaching and learning looks like within the context of the two-year college, I offer descriptions of three projects done under the auspices of the Carnegie Academy for the Support of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) with additional support from our institutions.
Moving Beyond Black-and-White Thinking: Engaging Students in Authentic Problems
By Donna Killian Duffy
Focus
Since 1992 I have used service learning as an option in my psychology courses as a way to help students understand the complexity of human behavior and the importance of interpreting situations from multiple perspectives. My course in abnormal psychology presents a wide range of disorders, focuses on deficits rather than strengths, and often defines problems in neat categories. But venturing into community settings requires students to struggle with course content in more realistic ways. One student observed of his experience, “It wasn’t black and white, like in the book. The child I wrote about didn’t have the symptoms of one disorder. He had a few of many. But how could this be? This was a problem I thought about all semester.” Students need intellectual categories and strategies to help them understand problems, but they also need to appreciate the ill-defined nature of human behaviors.
With this in mind, I redesigned the course around the generative topic of resilience and wove two questions throughout the semester. First, why are some people resilient in the face of difficult life situations while others develop maladaptive behaviors? Second, what kinds of approaches promote more resilience in individuals and communities?
Method
I implemented my original project in 1998, and since then my course has evolved in a variety of ways based on knowledge gained over six semesters. Two approaches that have been most effective are the critical-incident group project, described in detail below, and student essays on resiliency.
The critical-incident group project involves a three-part written assignment that integrates the learning from students working in the community with those involved in more traditional projects, such as research about a disorder or review of treatment approaches. Early in the semester students are placed into teams of three or four, with one of the students participating in service learning. Team members regularly discuss issues from the community and find connections to course content and other written projects.
Around the midpoint of the semester, the service-learning student writes Part I, the description of a critical incident that has occurred at the community site. The term “incident” is defined broadly—it can be an ongoing dilemma or an event that was surprising to the student. The other students then complete Part II, in which they tie the incident to material from the course. In Part III, all students on the team reflect on the incident and its connections to the course and describe the new understandings they have gained through this analysis.
The other approach involves pre- and post-resiliency essays that aim to capture alterations in student thinking as a result of coursework during the semester. In the first week of class, students read an article on resiliency and highlight the most interesting ideas, concepts, or stories. They write an essay selecting three items from the article, explaining why they are interesting, and connecting them to other courses or experiences. At the end of the semester students reread the article and use a different color highlighter to note ideas or concepts that have new meaning for them based on readings, class discussions or group activities. Then they select three ideas or concepts and explain how or why they view them differently and discuss how their experiences over the past semester have influenced the way that they now read the article.
Results
The critical-incident group projects provide a collaborative way for students to share their experiences and to develop deeper levels of understanding of course material. The teams navigate the complexity of authentic problems and reframe their observations using the resources provided through the course material on resilience. For example, they consider ways that communities foster resiliency in people with Alzheimer’s disease, which leads to lively discussions about local programs and societal views on aging. These group reflections help students develop the enhanced sense of civic responsibility that is central to service learning.
The most common theme in the resiliency essays at the end of the semester is an acknowledgement of the need to consider multiple factors in diagnosing and treating mental disorders. A student’s comment that “my experiences in class were definitely helped by my partner working out in the community, as well as others in the class who have shared their stories” is typical; it reinforces the value of integrating the two sides of the classroom experience.
Implications for Teaching and Learning
A clear benefit of the scholarship of teaching and learning is its long-term impact. My original project continues to evolve, and I am now applying focused inquiry to courses in introductory psychology. Being public, open to critical review, and presenting ideas in a form others can build on sets the stage for more thoughtful approaches that can be adapted and revised in ongoing practice.
Professors teaching the same courses repeatedly are excellent candidates for implementing the scholarship of teaching and learning. Faculty at community colleges sometimes struggle with sustaining enthusiasm while teaching the same introductory course for the 30th time to a group of often-unprepared and unmotivated undergraduates. Using skills of inquiry and reflective practice provided from work in the scholarship of teaching and learning helps in this struggle and may indeed turn it into an opportunity.
What ARE They Thinking and Feeling? How Students Read the Literature of the Holocaust
By Howard Tinberg
Focus
This project began with an observation that 12 students who took a team-taught, interdisciplinary honors seminar on the literature and history of the Holocaust (Shoah in Hebrew) responded in what I saw as less-than-productive ways to the course materials. Their written commentary—either summary accounts of what they were reading or purely emotionally centered remarks—suggested that several students had difficulty achieving critical distance on the reading. Many of those same students reported having nightmares after reading selections from the course and had trouble with reading and/or writing assignments. I wondered whether I could promote in students a more balanced response that honored both the cognitive and the emotional. I wanted to achieve “embodied cognition,” a way of reading that called upon both the head and the heart.
But first I had to learn as much as I could about how my students read the literature. Could I get beyond the anecdotal and subjective in systematically studying the ways in which my students dealt with this challenging material? Could I devise a table of reading—a taxonomy of responses to the literature of the Shoah? The construction of that table became the focus of my research.
Method
To ascertain their prior experience with the literature of the Shoah, I asked students to fill out a reader profile at the start of the course. At the end of the course, students completed an exit survey in which they reflected on the process of reading that literature.
To elicit responses to the reading, I relied on two modes of data collection: student journals and taped “reading aloud/thinking aloud” sessions. The journals, which recorded students’ thoughts on what they had read during the week, were entered into a triple-entry notebook. The notebook allowed a space for both affective and critical responses. Students selected a passage that resonated with them and reproduced that in one column. Then they described how the passage made them feel in the second column. Finally, in the last column, students offered a critical analysis of the passage.
To track the process while it occurred, I also asked students to tape their reactions to the texts while reading. Providing them with a read-aloud/think-aloud protocol and modeling it during class, I asked students to play the role of co-researchers, talking out their responses to a week’s worth of reading.
Results
Integrating the data taken from the audiotapes and the notebook of weekly readings, I was able to discern several categories of response.
__________________________________________________________
Table of Reading
Silent: Absence of vocalized response
Summary: Restatement of the passage
Affective: Emotional response to the passage
Interrogative: Questions prompted by the passage
Dissonant: Statement of confusion or acknowledgement of disparate claims
Metacognitive: Comments on the reading-aloud process
Disciplinary: Terms that reveal knowledge of disciplinary conventions
Inferential: Larger meaning drawn from particular passages
Synthetic: Connection of passages with other texts or with classroom discussion
__________________________________________________________
I found that most commonly, responses fell within the “summary” to “dissonant” range of the table. Far less common were responses that fell between the metacognitive to synthetic range of categories. And not surprisingly, the likelihood of a complex response seemed to depend on the age of the student: The older the student, the more likely a greater sophistication of response.
Implications for Teaching and Learning
Before conducting this study, I had little basis for knowing how—at what intellectual level—my students read the literature of the Shoah. Although I could learn something from class discussion and various modes of assessment (reading their journals, objective questions, short-answer exams, and reflective essays), I really could not tell what was happening in my students as they were reading. Knowing this could shape choices as to which materials to assign and increase my sensitivity to the effect that they have on my students.
Students have reported that the course has promoted a greater awareness of prejudice and a need to respond when observing intolerance. The introspection promoted by the reading aloud/thinking aloud process and the reflective reading journal will, I believe, produce an even greater self-awareness as to how they feel and think about the Shoah, a topic that engages students’ hearts and minds as few can.
The Link Aloud: Making Interdisciplinary Learning Visible and Audible
By Jack Mino
Focus
The primary goal of my project was to describe how students integrated their learning as members of interdisciplinary learning communities, with a particular focus on students’ writing. I especially wanted to identify processes in three courses: Identity Matters (developmental English), Bring In the Noise: Teen Angst & Anthems (sophomore literature and psychology), and Seduction of Crime: Gender and Offender (honors literature and psychology).
Method
I adopted a “link aloud” method, which provided a visual and auditory representation of interdisciplinary learning. The “link aloud” procedure, that is verbal protocol analysis, is used by cognitive psychologists to describe and map thinking and problem-solving. Rather than looking at a student’s thinking in general, I focused on the connections students made between disciplines and sources of material both in their writing (mapping this using a diagram) and in their reading aloud and discussion (excerpting key words and phrases and inserting them via hyperlinks into the visual map of their essay.)
I asked students to select a sample of their writing that demonstrated interdisciplinary learning—that is, in which they made links or connections among disciplines, disparate subject matters, and/or multiple sources of material. Students then read the assignment out loud, paragraph by paragraph, discussing what, where, and how they made those connections. The students’ interviews were audio-recorded.
I used their writing—specific word choices, operative phrases, interpretations, etc.—to probe and sometimes provoke the students’ thinking, particularly as it related to the integration of material. For example, in Kathy Daly’s essay “Re-Imagining Our Mythology,” I asked her to describe in visual terms what happens to her thesis as the essay proceeds, paragraph by paragraph. She responded that the essay takes the form of a spiral, as she went back (with a variation) to the central theme/thesis after each of the four required articles was analyzed. Together we named and described the “feedback-loop link” as the primary means of integration between subject matters.
I asked the students to consider what, if any, new knowledge or understanding they had discovered or constructed as a result of doing this assignment and/or participating in the audio-taped “link aloud” interview. This method became not just a data-retrieval procedure but a collaborative reflection on interdisciplinary learning.
I interviewed 12 students across three course levels, completing 20 interviews in all (some students participated in only one and others participated in several). I also conducted “link alouds” with a few faculty. Though only a few faculty participated, the preliminary finding indicated high consistency between students' and faculty members' perceptions of integration.
Findings
The procedure provided an electronic document of interdisciplinary learning (a Web-based electronic document using the Carnegie Foundation’s Keep Toolkit “project snapshot” template). It also enabled students and faculty to revisit writing assignments through close reading and conversation. The result was a deep learning experience by way of guided reflection. After a review of the completed “link alouds” with the participants, I sorted the mechanisms of integration they described into 12 types:
• Embedded quotes: The student writes a sentence that integrates a quotation from the text.
• Metaphor: The student uses or creates a metaphor to link disciplines or sources.
• Personal experience: The student uses personal experience as a “critical incident” that links disciplines or sources.
• Integrative question: The student poses a question that can only be addressed by a synthesis of different sources.
• Feedback loop: The student returns to the primary thesis or theme but with a variation or elaboration.
• Theory application: The student applies a theory from one discipline to describe, analyze, explain, and/or evaluate something in another discipline.
• Method of inquiry: The student uses a (field-based) research method to investigate a question and/or test a construct or theory.
• Epigraph: The student uses prose, poetry, or song lyrics as a distillation of the thesis, construct, or theory.
• Epistemological critique: The student evaluates the validity of an element, concept, construct, or theory by identifying the epistemological constraints or limitations of the discipline.
• Personal beliefs and values: The student uses personal beliefs and/or values to link disciplines or sources.
• Using or creating a construct: The student uses or creates a construct from one discipline or source to analyze or evaluate something in another.
• Comparison and contrast: The student compares and/or contrasts disciplines or sources.
Implications for Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning
The link-aloud strategy can be used in a variety of ways. By audiotaping and/or videotaping individual student conferences, small-group presentations, or large-group classroom conversations, scholars can document interdisciplinary conversations, which they then can revisit in class through guided reflection. In this way students become co-investigators as we inquire into the epistemology of the interdisciplinary classroom. These discussions help us answer questions about what constitutes collective interdisciplinary knowledge, how it develops, and what kinds of linking mechanisms students use in interdisciplinary conversations and to what effect.
The View Ahead
Given the challenges of the two-year college setting, particularly the burdensome workloads of community-college faculty, a creative approach to scholarship is required. A common thread that runs through all the projects highlighted in this essay is the embedded nature of their research strategies. From Duffy’s “resiliency” model of mental illness to my table of reading to Mino’s mechanisms of integration, the research methods function as instructional methods, not just data-gathering strategies. Teaching and research go hand in hand.
The scholarship of teaching and learning promises two-year college faculty recognition as bona fide teacher/scholars. The importance of such recognition cannot be overstated as two-year college faculty continue their struggle to construct an identity as higher-education professionals. If these faculty play to their strengths—their intense engagement with students, their passion for teaching and learning—the research possibilities afforded by SoTL are rich indeed. Moreover, their enhanced identity as both teachers and scholars may assist two-year college faculty in forming collegial partnerships with their counterparts at four-year institutions who are similarly committed to scholarly exchanges.
But challenges remain to complicate matters for two-year college teachers, most fundamentally the threat of becoming production workers with little time for reflection, instead of teaching professionals whose work is continually reviewed, shared, and revised. Administrators and faculty alike need to create a far more complex and productive vision of the two-year college teacher/scholar than exists today. That vision ought to include time for inquiry, discovery, and collegial exchange—all the critical components of the scholarship of teaching and learning.
Howard Tinberg is professor of English and founding director of the Writing Lab at Bristol Community College in Fall River, Massachusetts. He is the author of two books, Border Talk: Writing and Knowing at the Two-Year College (NCTE, 1997) and Writing with Consequence: What Writing Does in the Discipline (Longman, 2003). He also co-edited, with Patrick Sullivan, What is College-Level Writing? (NCTE 2006). He is past editor of the journal Teaching English in the Two-Year College (published by NCTE). He was the 2004 recipient of the Carnegie/CASE Community College Professor of the Year Award. Donna Killian Duffy is professor of psychology and coordinator of the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) program at the Middlesex Community College campuses in Bedford and Lowell, Massachusetts. She participated in the Pew National Fellowship Program for Carnegie Scholars in 1998-1999 and received the Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award for Service-Learning in 1999. Jack Mino co-founded the Learning Communities Program at Holyoke Community College in 1993. He was awarded the Elaine Marrieb Faculty Chair for Teaching Excellence for his work with learning communities and most recently was selected to participate in the 2005-06 Carnegie Scholars Program to investigate interdisciplinary learning in learning communities.