This document discusses the need for a rigorous scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL). It begins by outlining some common student questions received via email. It then discusses how teaching problems can be reframed as problems to investigate rather than fix. The document advocates making teaching practices and evidence of student learning subjects of regular discussion and debate. It provides examples of how to make teaching more inquiry-based through observation, evidence collection, and sharing findings. The document argues the best reason for SOTL work is to improve teaching practices and student learning.

1. Why We Need a Vigorous
Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning
Jeffrey L. Bernstein
Department of Political Science
Eastern Michigan University
International Seminar on Pedagogical Innovations
INACAP – Universidad Tecnological de Chile
10 September 2013

2. E-mail from a Student
IF POSSIBLE I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW THE RESULTS OF THE ECONOMIC
DEVELOPMENT SIMULATION…
WAS IT BETTER TO HAVE THE PANEL PICKED OR RANDOMLY SELECTED?
PLEASE E-MAIL ME BACK BEFORE 3 PM

3. E-mail from a Student
Dr. B, I’m writing my post-simulation paper and I missed the last day.
Can you tell me if school prayer should be allowed? Thanks.

4. Teaching vs. Learning

5. The Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning Starts with a Problem
In scholarship and research, having a "problem" is at the heart of the
investigative process; it is the compound of the generative questions
around which all creative and productive activity revolves. But in one’s
teaching, a "problem" is something you don’t want to have, and if you
have one, you probably want to fix it. Asking a colleague about a problem
in his or her research is an invitation; asking about a problem in one’s
teaching would probably seem like an accusation. Changing the status of
the problem in teaching from terminal remediation to ongoing
investigation is precisely what the movement for a scholarship of teaching
is all about. How might we make the problematization of teaching a
matter of regular communal discourse? How might we think of teaching
practice, and the evidence of student learning, as problems to be
investigated, analyzed, represented, and debated?
Bass (1998, p. 1, italics in original)

6. How Do We Make Our Teaching More
Inquiry-Based?
• Observation: Begin with what you see … questions
unanswered, problems perceived. What’s going on?
• Inquiry and Evidence: Construct an investigation into
student learning. Look for artifacts and examples of
student learning. How can you make sense of what
you see?
• Go Public: Figure out how you want to share what
you have learned with the broader community.

7. Lee Shulman on Scholarship
“For an activity to be designated as
scholarship, it should manifest at least
three characteristics: it should be
public, susceptible to critical review and
evaluation, and accessible for exchange
and use by other members of one’s
own scholarly community.”
Shulman 2000

8. Scholarship Reconsidered
Ernest Boyer (1990)
•The result of examining what faculty do
•The four scholarships:
–Discovery
–Integration
–Application
–Teaching

9. Scholarship Assessed
Glassick, Huber and Maeroff (1997)
•All forms of scholarship (including
teaching and learning) require:
–Clear goals
–Adequate preparation
–Appropriate methods
–Significant results
–Effective presentation
–Reflective critique

10. Beginning from a
Teaching Problem
What is a teaching problem (in Randy Bass’ sense) with which you are
struggling?
• What works? What works better?
• What is it? What does it look like?
• A vision of the possible – what can be done?
Adapted from Hutchings (2000)

11. Designing Your Inquiry
What types of evidence can you find?
• Student work – exams, papers
• Student journals or reflection papers
• The instructor’s own reflection – blogging?
• Videotaping or audio taping of class activity
• Talking to and working with your students

12. A Progression of Teaching
Good teaching
Scholarly teaching
Scholarship of teaching and learning
McKinney (2004)

13. An Integrated Model
Stage 1:
Growth in Own
Teaching
Stage 2:
Dialogue About Teaching & Learning
Stage 3:
Growth in
Scholarship of
Teaching
Good
Teaching
Scholarly
Teaching
Scholarship
of Teaching
&
Learning

14. Why Should We Do
this Kind of Work?
The best reason to do this kind of work is
so that we can feed our investigations of
student learning back into our teaching
practices, and into our students’
learning.

15. Why Should We Do
this Kind of Work?
I’ll repeat: The best reason to do this kind
of work is so that we can feed our
investigations of student learning back
into our teaching practices, and into our
students’ learning.

16. Why Should We Do
this Kind of Work?
One more time: The best reason to do this
kind of work is so that we can feed our
investigations of student learning back
into our teaching practices, and into our
students’ learning.

17. Unpacking the Reasons to be Inquiry-
Based Teachers
1. Institutional reasons
2. Disciplinary reasons
3. Personal reasons

18. Inquiry-Based Teaching and Campus
Conversations
Where do conversations about teaching and learning take place on
campus?
Assessment/Accreditation
General Education
Program Review
Recruitment/Retention
Tenure/Promotion

19. Commoditization of Higher Ed
How do we avoid our courses, and
our universities, being seen merely
as commodities?
- Craig Nelson

20. Unpacking the Reasons to be Inquiry-
Based Teachers
1. Institutional reasons
2. Disciplinary reasons
3. Personal reasons

21. SOTL in the Disciplines
“At the core of the entire project of a scholarship of
teaching and learning is the belief that disciplinary
thinking is crucial to learning. Therefore, a central
goal of this work is to define as clearly as possible
the kinds of thinking that students typically have to
do in each academic field and to devise strategies
for introducing students to these mental operations
as effectively as possible.”
Pace 2004

22. SOTL in the Disciplines
“*B+y making visible the ‘invisible’ cognitive work of
historians, scholarship in history-specific cognition creates a
richer, more nuanced picture of cognition than linear lists of skills or
general taxonomies of thought.”
Bain 2000, p. 333

23. Bottlenecks
“places where significant numbers of students are unable to grasp
basic concepts or successfully complete important tasks.”
Díaz, Middendorf, Pace and Shopkow
(2008, p. 1211)

24. The Puzzle
•What does expert thinking look like?
•What does novice thinking look like?
•What can we learn from the way experts approach
the task (the bottlenecks) that can inform how we
teach our undergraduates?

25. The Think-Aloud Method
• Hearing thoughts as they occur
• Pull back the curtain – better view of student work
• Valuable tool for understanding learning and informing our teaching

26. Wineburg’s Think-Alouds
Think-alouds of high school National Merit Scholars and history
professors
No knowledge differences, but….

27. Wineburg’s Think-Alouds
Dramatically different ways that experts
and novices approach the task:
•Ordering
•Sourcing
•Arguing

28. A Typology of Bottlenecks
General Bottlenecks
• Biases in sources
• Links between sources
Issue-Specific Bottlenecks
• Politics as a contact sport
• Efficiency as the holy grail
• Majority rules/minority rights

29. Unpacking the Reasons to be Inquiry-
Based Teachers
1. Institutional reasons
2. Disciplinary reasons
3. Personal reasons

30. Wisdom from Parker Palmer
“We teach who we are.”
So who am I? And what does that mean for my teaching?

31. References
Bain, Robert B. 2000. “Into the Breach: Using Research and Theory to Shape History
Instruction.” In Stearns, Peter N., Peter Seixas and Sam Wineburg, (editors).
Knowing, Teaching and Learning History: National and International Perspectives.
New York: New York University Press.
Bass, Randy. 1999. “The Scholarship of Teaching: What’s the Problem?
Inventio, Volume 1, Number 1.
http://www.doit.gmu.edu/archives/feb98/randybass.htm
Bernstein, Jeffrey L. and Sarah M. Ginsberg. “Toward an Integrated Model of the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Faculty Development.” Journal for Centers
for Teaching and Learning 1: 57-72.
Boyer, Ernest L. 1990. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate.
Princeton: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Díaz, Arlene, Joan Middendorf, David Pace and Leah Shopkow. 2008. “The History
Learning Project: A Department ‘Decodes’ Its Students.” The Journal of American
History 94 (4): 1211-1224.
Glassick, Charles E., Mary Taylor Huber and Gene I. Maeroff. 1997. Scholarship
Assessed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Huber, Mary Taylor and Pat Hutchings. 2005. The Advancement of Learning: Building
the Teaching Commons. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

32. More References
Hutchings, Pat. 2000. “Introduction: Approaching the Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning.” In Hutchings, Pat (ed.) Opening Lines: Approaches to the Scholarship
of Teaching and Learning. Menlo Park, CA: Carnegie Publications.
McKinney, Kathleen. 2004. “The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Past
Lessons, Current Challenges, and Future Visions.” To Improve the Academy 22: 3-
19.
Pace, David. 2004. “The Amateur in the Operating Room: History and the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” American Historical Review 109
(October): 1171-1192.
Shulman, Lee S. 2000. “From Minsk to Pinsk: Why a Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning.” Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 1:48-52.
Shulman, Lee S. 1993. “Teaching as Community Property: Putting an End to
Pedagogical Solitude.” Change 25: 6-7.
Smith, Michael B., Rebecca S. Nowacek and Jeffrey L. Bernstein, eds. 2010.
Citizenship Across the Curriculum. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Wineburg, Sam. 2001. Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the
Future of Teaching the Past. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

33. Thank You!
Questions/comments/criticisms?
Jeffrey L. Bernstein
Department of Political Science
Eastern Michigan University
734-487-6970
jeffrey.bernstein@emich.edu