{"id":10082,"date":"2012-06-05t09:00:10","date_gmt":"2012-06-05t15:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=10082"},"modified":"2013-03-29t09:28:12","modified_gmt":"2013-03-29t14:28:12","slug":"sotl-spotlight-whats-in-it-for-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2012\/06\/sotl-spotlight-whats-in-it-for-me\/","title":{"rendered":"sotl spotlight: what’s in it for me?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"sotl<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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by nancy chick, cft assistant director<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

nancy <\/a>is the\u00a0author<\/a><\/em> <\/em>of a variety of sotl articles and book chapters, as well as\u00a0co-editor<\/a><\/em> <\/em>of two books on signature pedagogies and co-editor of <\/em>teaching & learning inquiry<\/a>, the official journal of\u00a0the international society for the scholarship<\/em> <\/em>of teaching and learning (issotl<\/a>).<\/em> “sotl spotlight” is her ongoing feature on the cft website.<\/em><\/p>\n

in my last \u201csotl spotlight,\u201d<\/a> i mentioned harvard university\u2019s new $40 million grant dedicated to teaching and learning initiatives, including a symposium, a consortium, some classroom redesign, and a grant program for projects to improve teaching and learning on campus. over 250 proposals were submitted for review, and 47 projects were awarded grants for $5,000 to $50,000 (2012-2013).\u00a0 the guiding principles for the projects were that they should be innovative, to \u201cenable new educational practices and policies\u201d; evidence-based, rather than \u201cdependent solely on intuition or anecdote\u201d; and extendable with products of some type that are \u201cworth sharing, \u2026 to build community around evidence-based learning and teaching\u201d (\u201charvard\u201d). without using the term, harvard is putting a significant amount of money behind the scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl).<\/p>\n

such grants are effective extrinsic motivators to do evidence-based research on teaching and learning. in my previous university system, programs like harvard\u2019s were widespread, although on a smaller scale.\u00a0 even with less funding, a ripple effect was visible: a little support for one\u2019s time, the help of an assistant, or the ability to bring groups together for a day or two went a long way toward shifting the culture of the institution away from one that primarily supports research and \u201cprovide[s] instruction,\u201d toward one that also \u201cexists to produce learning<\/em>\u201d (barr and tagg).\u00a0 even colleagues who weren\u2019t funded were affected because they saw the institution, its administration, and more and more peers validating this work.<\/p>\n

however, i\u2019m reminded of the limits of extrinsic motivation. if the external motivator is removed\u2014by budgetary constraints, for instance\u2014will the work continue? that remains to be seen at my former institution.\u00a0 i hope so.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

it\u2019s an important question, though, especially for campuses like vanderbilt, where there is no such grant program, large or small.\u00a0 what are the motivators for us to improve teaching and learning in systematic ways? \u00a0why\u2014amid all of the demands of the profession\u2014would vanderbilt faculty do this kind of research in their classrooms, take the time to subject it to peer review, and share it widely, as they do with their disciplinary work?\u00a0 why would they do work outside of their disciplinary expertise and the primary requirements of the job?<\/p>\n

there are institution-specific surveys on such questions, but i\u2019m more interested in the findings from a broader survey of faculty from a variety of fields, ranks, and institutions (cox, huber, and hutchings 133-141).\u00a0 when asked why they originally got involved in this work, faculty (the majority of whom were from doctoral-level campuses) cited the following as the most important reasons:<\/p>\n