In 2000, the notion of teaching as a scholarly act, which I heard during a national teaching conference presentation, significantly changed the focus of my work with the faculty at my campus. As an instructional designer, I arrange professional development and provide resources on best practices in teaching and learning. Yet, up to that point, I had not provided opportunities that encouraged faculty to think about their work in teaching as “scholarship”.
Changing my focus in this way began a very meaningful phase in my career which I hope is reflected in the volume of faculty work that I am putting together for fall 2017 publication – a collection of their action research projects resulting from their participation in the Schreyer Institute for Teaching Excellence’s (SITE) advanced version of the Course in College Teaching. The projects documented there will represent significant work completed by faculty at the Penn State York campus in the Spring and Fall 2017 semesters.
The amount of time and care that our faculty put into their teaching is both impressive (in terms of scope and challenge) and scholarly. When a faculty member creates a syllabus, or plans a lesson, develops activities and assessments, or handles classroom behavior in a thoughtful manner which is informed by research on teaching in the disciplines and which is then shared with colleagues, that work is then elevated into the realm of scholarship. As such, it should be useful to other faculty members facing similar issues, and should be acknowledged and rewarded by the institution in formal ways for contributing to excellence in the field of teaching.
Approach and Participants
As stated, faculty members participated in a semester-long exploration of their teaching in an advanced version of SITE’s Course in College Teaching. In the program, each participant chose a challenging aspect of their teaching to investigate using an action research approach. Sessions were held on writing effective problem-statements, searching for resources, exploring intervention ideas in disciplinary teaching journals, and methods of classroom data collection. These were presented by Drs. Chas Brua and Mary Ann Tobin of SITE and me.
The program provided time for discussion with colleagues, feedback sessions, and problem-solving. Each person drafted a report detailing the problem addressed, classroom context, intervention used, data collection methods, and lessons learned. Finally, participants presented their projects and outcomes to the group. Faculty members who completed these outcomes received a certificate from SITE to acknowledge their accomplishments.
The program also had a non-certificate track for any faculty member interested in the conversations around teaching, but who did not have time or interest in completing the formal deliverables for the program.
Sixteen faculty members participated in the program and twelve completed the formal SITE certificate. Those reports will go into the volume to be published in Fall 2017. The breakdown of faculty appointment types and disciplines appears in the tables below.
| Discipline | Count |
| English | 3 |
| History | 1 |
| Mathematics | 2 |
| Information Sciences & Technology | 2 |
| Psychology | 1 |
| Human Development & Family Studies | 1 |
| Library | 1 |
| Spanish | 1 |
| Science | 3 |
| Business | 1 |
| Appointment Type | Count |
| Tenure line | 8 |
| Full-time, non-tenure line | 5 |
| Part-time | 3 |
Common Themes
Many common themes arose during the program which added to the interest level as faculty from different disciplines chose a variety of approaches to address the same problem. Some common themes were readiness, engagement, and differentiating instruction to meet the demands of multiple ability levels in a single class. Other issues addressed were encouraging critical thinking, getting students to ask better questions, designing a course syllabus around threshold concepts, mapping skills across multiple courses, and improving student journal use for creative projects.
Next Steps
The possible next steps for faculty would be to explore SoTL options for publishing in teaching journals which would mean completing the Citi training to be able to complete Institutional Review Board proposals for research with human subjects. In the fall, there is a local campus colloquium series in which several of the faculty would like to present their work.
This was a very meaningful series for me as an instructional designer. It created opportunities for design conversations with a broader spectrum of our faculty and it was really very encouraging to see the interest and dedication our faculty have to their teaching craft. I think the most significant strength of our small campus is our faculty and their willingness to engage with their teaching to create meaningful and effective learning opportunities for our students. This program enhanced the level of engagement to the realm of the scholarly.
