The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning as a subversive activity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.4.1.6Keywords:
SoTL, Faculty Learning Community, Higher Education, InquiryAbstract
One of the most serious challenges facing higher education today is the erosion of academic culture—a declining sense that faculty form a community whose members reflect, deliberate, and make decisions together in the name of a shared educational vision. Our experience with Gonzaga University’s Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Initiative suggests that SoTL can be a powerful counter force to this erosion. What became increasingly evident as the initiative unfolded was that its most important result was the creation of a kind of alternative academic community that stands in opposition to many of the dis-integrative, disempowering forces at work in higher education. The scholarly examination of practice, done in a collaborative context, changed participants’ perceptions of learning, of themselves as teachers, and of the larger endeavor of which they are a part. Thus, we came to see the SoTL initiative as a subversive activity in the sense used by Neil Postman and Charles Weingartner in their 1969 book, Teaching as a Subversive Activity: one that invites critical questions about education’s purposes, practices, and underlying assumptions, and in so doing reanimates core values.
Metrics
References
Baird, J. (2011). Accountability in Australia. In B. Stensaker & L. Harvey (Eds.), Accountability in higher education: Global perspectives on trust and power (pp. 25-48). New York, NY: Routledge.
Banta, T.W., & Blaich, C. (2011). Closing the assessment loop. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 43(1), 22-27.
Bernstein, D., Burnett, A. N., Goodburn, A., & Savory, P. (2006). Making teaching and learning visible: Course portfolios and the peer review of teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
Burghardt, W. (1989). Contemplation: A long loving look at the real. Church, 5, 14-18.
Ciccone, T. (2008). Examining the impact of SoTL. International Commons, 3(1), 12-13. Retrieved from http://www.issotl.org/international_Commons_3.1.pdf.
Clark, T. (2009). Impact of reforms on the quality and responsiveness of universities in the United Kingdom. Higher Education Management and Policy, 21(2), 107-122.
Cook-Sather, A., Bovill, C, & Felten, P. (2014). Engaging students as partners in learning and teaching: A guide for faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (2007). Ministerial statement on quality assurance of degree education in Canada. Retrieved from http://www.cmec.ca/Publications/Lists/Publications/Attachments/95/QAStatement-2007.en.pdf.
Cox, M. D. (2004). Introduction to faculty learning communities. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 97, 5-23.
Cox, R., Huber, M. T., & Hutchings, P. (2005). Survey of CASTL Scholars. In M. T. Huber & P. Hutchings (Eds.), The advancement of learning: Building the teaching commons (pp. 133-150). Stanford, CA: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Ewell, P. (2009). Assessment, accountability, and improvement: Revisiting the tension. (NILOA Occasional Paper No. 1). Urbana, IL: National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment.
Fanghanel, J. (2013). Going public with pedagogical inquiries: SoTL as a methodology for faculty professional development. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 1(1), 59-70.
Glassick, C. E., Huber, M. T., & Maeroff, G. I. (1997). Scholarship assessed: Evaluation of the professoriate. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hatch, T., Bass, R., Iiyoshi, T., & Pointer Mace, D. (2004). Building knowledge for teaching and learning: The promise of scholarship in a networked environment. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 36(5), 42-49.
Healey, M. (2012). Students as change agents. Retrieved from http://www.mickhealey.co.uk/resources.
Hinds, P. J. (1999). The curse of expertise: The effects of expertise and debiasing methods on prediction of novice performance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 5(2), 205-221.
Huber, M. T. (2004). Balancing acts: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in academic careers. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education.
Huber, M. T., & Hutchings, P. (2005). The advancement of learning: Building the teaching commons. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hutchings, P. (Ed.). (1996). Making teaching community property: A menu for peer collaboration and peer review. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education.
Hutchings, P. (2011). Report to the AVP on interviews with Gonzaga University chairs. Unpublished report.
Hutchings, P., Borin, P., Keesing-Styles, L., Martin, L., Michael, R., Scharff, L., Simkins, S., & Ismail, A. (2013). The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in an age of accountability: Building bridges. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 1(2), 35-47.
Hutchings, P., Huber, M. T., & Ciccone, A. (2011). The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning reconsidered: Institutional integration and impact. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Killen, P. O., & Gallagher, E. V. (2013). Sketching the contours of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in theology and religion. Teaching Theology and Religion, 16(2), 107-124.
Korth, S. J. (2008). Précis of Ignatian pedagogy: A practical approach. In G. W. Traub, (Ed.), A Jesuit education reader (pp. 280-284). Chicago, IL: Loyola Press.
Kreber, C. (2013). The transformative potential of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 1(1), 5-18.
Macfarlane, B. (2005). The disengaged academic: The retreat from citizenship. Higher Education Quarterly, 59(4), 296-312.
Massey, W., Wilger, A., & Colbeck, C. (1994). Department cultures and teaching quality: Overcoming “hollowed” collegiality. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 26(4), 11–20.
Middendorf, J., & Pace, D. (2004). Decoding the disciplines: Helping students learn disciplinary ways of thinking. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 98, 1-12.
Newton, J. (2000). Feeding the beast or improving quality? Academics’ perceptions of quality assurance and quality monitoring. Quality in Higher Education, 6(2), 152-163.
Nicholsen, K. (2011). Quality assurance in higher education: A review of the literature. Retrieved from http://cll.mcmaster.ca/COU/pdf/Quality%20Assurance%20Literature%20Review.pdf .
Obama, B. H. (2013). Remarks by the President on college affordability -- Buffalo, NY (August 22, 2013). Retrieved from https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/08/22/remarks-president-collegeaffordability-buffalo-ny.
O’Meara, K., & Rice, R. E. (Eds.). (2005). Faculty priorities reconsidered: Rewarding multiple forms of scholarship. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Peseta, T., Brew, A., McShane, K., & Barrie, S. (2007). Encouraging the scholarship of learning and teaching in an institutional culture. In A. Brew & J. Sachs (Eds.), Transforming a university: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in practice (pp. 223-232). Sydney: Sydney University Press.
Postman, N., & Weingartner, C. (1969). Teaching as a subversive activity. New York, NY: Dell Publishing.
Rhoades, G. (1998). Managed professionals: Unionized faculty and the restructuring of academic labor. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Rice, R. E. (2006). From Athens to Berlin to LA: Faculty work and the new academy. Liberal Education, 92(4), 6-13.
Richlin, L., & Cox, M. D. 2004. Developing scholarly teaching and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning through faculty learning communities. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 97, 127-135.
Roth, W-M., & McGinn, M. K. (1997). Graphing: Cognitive ability or practice? Science Education, 81(1), 91-106.
Roxa, T., Olsson, T., & Martensson, K. (2008). Appropriate use of theory in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning as a strategy for institutional development. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 7(3), 276-294.
Schneider, C. G. (2013). Did you know? Employers do not want narrow, illiberal learning! Liberal Education, 99(1), 2-3.
Shulman, L. S. (1993). Teaching as community property: Putting an end to pedagogical solitude. Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning, 25(6), 6-7.
Simmons, N., Abrahamson, E., Deshler, J., Kensington-Miller, B., Manarin, K., Moron-Garcia, Oliver, C. & Renc-Roe, J. (2013.) Conflicts and configurations in a liminal space: SoTL scholars’ identity development. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, 1(2), 9-21.
Sommers, J. (2004). Two-year college English faculty and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: The journey awaits. Teaching English in the Two-Year College, 32(1), 14-25.
Voelker, D., & Martin, R. (2013). Wisconsin teaching fellows & scholars program assessment project: Final report. Retrieved from https://www.wisconsin.edu/opid/wisconsin-teaching-fellows-scholars-program/.
Weingarten, H. P. (2013, November 20). Managing for quality: A change manifesto for Canadian universities. [Web log comment]. Retrieved from http://blog-en.heqco.ca/2013/11/.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Werder, C., & Otis, M. M. (Eds.). (2010). Engaging student voices in the study of teaching and learning. Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Wineburg, S. (2001). Historical thinking and other unnatural acts: Charting the future of teaching the past. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.