Cultivating a “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning”
This Professional Inquiry Project was intended to build upon the topics of educational technology and learning theory to examine the best practices utilized in Offices of Faculty Development (or Centers for Teaching and Learning) to support effective faculty integration of technology in the college classroom.
This project investigated the following essential question: How might we use cognitive principles and conceptual models of technology integration to design effective instruction and assessment? For this project, the question relates to the design of faculty professional development rather than the design of faculty classroom instruction.
At the university level, the decision to integrate technology in the classroom is often left to individual instructors. There may be a campus wide learning management system (LMS) in place, but widespread use of other tools is limited. Through a long and tedious process, faculty are trained to be “content experts.” Few professors receive pedagogical or technical training. However, that has been slowly changing over the past decade as new education technology tools found their way into academia and new learning theories rose to popular prominence. The challenge has been for Offices of Faculty Development (OFD) and Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL) to increase purposeful uptake of these ever-increasing technology tools. Recent research suggests beginning with an understanding of perceptions about “innovations in teaching” (Kopcha, Rieber, & Walker, 2016), moving to a model of faculty development (Kaminski & Bolliger, 2012; Murthy, Iyer, & Warriem, 2015), and finally cultivating a culture for scholarship of teaching and learning (Johnson & Ryba, 2015).
Kopcha et al., (2016) discovered that most faculty have a positive view of technology, even those overwhelmed by the number of technology choices. However, although some faculty see technology as a critical part of helping students achieve learning goals, others see technology as a key component of helping faculty meet teaching goals. This nuanced difference is important to OFD. Initiatives focused solely on “technology as innovation” may appeal to one group of faculty but may repel another group of faculty. OFD staff need to develop strategies that better balance the approaches of technology for learning and technology for teaching.
Regardless of the focus of approach, OFD should provide opportunities for technology immersion AND integration. Kaminski and Bolliger (2012) compared an immersive faculty development workshop to episodic workshops. The immersive workshop resulted in greater near term technology adoption and long term technology integration than episodic trainings (Kaminski & Bolliger, 2012). Faculty benefited from the extended time together, allowing for deeper exposure to technology and deeper formation of peer relationships.
Longer time also allows immersive workshops to implement all phases of the A2I Model (Murthy, Iyer, & Warriem, 2015) – Attain, Align, and Integrate. In the Attain phase, participants “attain” knowledge about the pedagogical affordances of selected educational tools (Murthy, et al., 2015). Next, in the Align phase, participants “align” the chosen tool and associated teaching strategy with higher order learning objectives (Murthy, et al., 2015). Finally, in the Integrate phase, participants “integrate” educational tools into classroom instructional and assessment activities (Murthy, et al., 2015). Each phase gives participants the time and framework to spiral deeper into educational tools and instructional strategies, boosting the confidence and skills necessary for technology adoption. (Some elements of the A2I model are derived from the TPACK framework by Mishra and Koehler, 2006).
Overall, the literature suggests that the practical matter of time is critically important when designing effective classroom instruction and assessment. However, the structuring of time (i.e., time in training, time with technology) should be based on cognitive (learning) principles and conceptual models of technology integration, such as Murthy, et al.’s (2015) A2I Model. Time is a luxury that many faculty just cannot afford. Any time spent in training, therefore, must be grounded in research to foster a culture of scholarship and, ultimately, to be most effective for student and teacher.
Examples of best practices for faculty development can be found at the following sites:
- Carnegie Mellon University,
Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Education Innovation - University of Michigan,
Center for Research on Learning & Teaching - Vanderbilt University
Center for Teaching
Numerous scholarly articles helped to answer the essential question.
- Johnson, B. & Ryba, K. (2015). Cultivating a culture of scholarship of teaching and learning. Journal on Centers for Teaching and Learning, 7, 51-71.
- Kaminski, K. & Bolliger, D. (2012). Technology, learning, and the classroom: Longitudinal evaluation of a faculty development model. Journal of Faculty Development , 26(1), 13-17.
- Kopcha, T., Rieber, L., & Walker, B. (2016). Understanding university faculty perceptions about innovation in teaching and technology. British Journal of Educational Technology, 47(5), 945-957.
- Mulnix, A. (2013). Communicating a new model: Learner-centered strategies in faculty development, Journal on Centers for Teaching and Learning, 5, 3-47.
- Murthy, S., Iyer, S., & Warriem, J. (2015). ET4ET: A large scale faculty professional development program on effective integration of information technology. Educational Technology & Society, 18(3), 16-28.
- Sweet, C., Blythe, H., Carpenter, R., & Cecil, T. (2018). Approaching the holy grail of faculty development: Evolving a CTL from a service-oriented organization to a learning-assessment unit. Journal on Centers for Teaching and Learning, 10, 45-55.
Additional research should continue to test various conceptual models, such as A2I, to demonstrate how they support learning theory.