Faculty presentations focused on SoTL research

Investigating how to advance the practice of teaching to enhance students’ learning is the impetus for research grants offered by the Center for Teaching and Learning.

Recently, grant recipients for eight funded projects shared their work at the second annual Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Research Showcase.

“Teaching and learning are integral to the life of the University, and the CTL is grateful to faculty members who engage in the study of scholarship and teaching,” said Garvey Pyke, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). “Through such projects, the CTL helps to grow and advance the scholarship of teaching.”

Anita Blowers, chair of the SOTL grants committee, noted the high level of interest in submitting proposals for funding – the committee has received about 22 proposals for each of the past two years.

“This year, we funded eight projects through a competitive process and awarded about $90,000, up from $71,000 in 2014-15” Blowers observed. “The diversity of ideas was impressive, and it was exciting to see more interdisciplinary projects.”

Coral Wayland, associate professor in the Department of Anthropology, presented “Gender, Race/Ethnicity and Team-based Learning,” a topic of research conducted with Lisa Walker, professor of sociology.

Because research involved students in her own class, Wayland used grant funding to train graduate students to collect observational data throughout the semester.

“There are some significant implications of our research. It suggests that faculty who do use peer reviews of performance in their classes need to be mindful about how race and gender influence the way students review each other,” explained Wayland. “This is especially important if peer reviews factor into grades in any way.”

Education faculty member Scott Kissau has used SoTL grant funding to support research on course development.

Kissau, associate professor of middle, secondary and K12 education, specializes in preparing foreign language teachers.

Given the looming teacher shortage in all disciplines, but especially for those in the areas of foreign language, Kissau has developed online and hybridized methodology coursework to reach nontraditional students and then investigated the impact of mode of instructional delivery on his teacher candidate’s self-efficacy.

He has written about his results in various scholarly publications, including Computer Assisted Language Learning.

Wayland, too, envisions publishing research results, and she plans to continue ethnographic investigation to develop a better sense how race, ethnicity and gender are influencing collaborative learning experiences.

“The SoTL program has proved to be a launching pad for further successful research and grants by UNC Charlotte faculty members. Many of the SoTL-funded projects have been published in peer-reviewed journals or presented at regional and national conferences,” said Pyke. “From the 2009-10 academic year to 2013-14, a total of 32 SoTL grants were funded. From those grants, 20 resulted in external presentations and/or publications, for a total of 29 publications and 38 presentations.”

In addition to Wayland and Kissau’s projects, the showcase featured:

• “Finding the ‘sweet spot’: Building intentional clinical experiences for preservice teachers” by Paul Fitchett, Susan Harden, Heather Coffey, Joyce Brigman and Thomas Fisher from the Department of Middle, Secondary and K12 Education
• “Flipping Traditional CS Education Upside Down: A Study of Interventions in Two Core Computing Courses” by Celine Latulipe, Bruce Long, Mary Lou Maher and Audrey Rorrer, College of Computing and Informatics
• “Pedagogy of Service Learning as an Informal Science Education: Community Engagement, Engineering and Underrepresented Youth” by Brett Tempest, civil engineering, and Lisa Merriweather, educational leadership
• “Pre-Service Teacher’s Preparedness to Teach African American Boys” by Erin Miller, reading and elementary education
• “Intergenerational Forum: Training Aspiring Health Care Professionals through Community-based Participatory Research Experiences” by Othelia Lee, School of Social Work, and Do-Hong Kim, educational leadership
• “Implementation of Simulation Using High Fidelity Manikins: An Intervention to Enhance Learning and Performance for Advance Practice Nurses in Pediatrics” by Marie Thomas, Kathleen Jordan and Colette Townsend‐Chambers, School of Nursing
• “Exploring the use of learning analytics from Moodle to enhance student learning and engagement in online courses” by Florence Martin and Patti Wilkins, educational leadership.

Information on the 2016-17 grant proposal process will be posted on the Center for Teaching and Learning website near the start of the fall semester.