2005–2006 SOTL Schedule of Events
Program Notes
Details of published events are subject to change, and additional events
may be added during the academic year. Current information regarding all
events is posted on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Web site
events calendar www.indiana.edu/~sotl/.
The faculty and graduate students of Indiana University are warmly invited
and encouraged to participate in all events. Faculty are encouraged to
forward invitations to SOTL events to colleagues and graduate students
who may be interested in participating. To minimize cost and waste of
food, handouts, and other materials and because seating capacity is limited
at some events, advance reservations for all events are kindly requested.
Online reservations may be quickly and conveniently completed
for any event at the SOTL website. Reservations can also be made at any
time prior to an event by contacting:
Sharon Smith
smiths@indiana.edu
812-855-9023
Videotapes of events will be loaned to faculty on any IU campus via
campus mail. Please make your request to Sharon Smith.
Please direct comments, suggestions, or queries regarding this
schedule or any aspect of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Program
to:
Jennifer Meta Robinson
Franklin Hall 004
Indiana University
601 E. Kirkwood Ave.
Bloomington, IN 47405
E-mail: jenmetar@indiana.edu
Tel: 812-855-9023
Fax: 812-855-8404
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SOTL Steering
Committee
Simon Brassell
Professor of Geological Sciences
Brian Powell
Professor of Sociology
Jennifer Meta Robinson
SOTL Coordinator, Office of Academic Affairs
Howard Rosenbaum
Associate Professor of Library & Information Science; MIS Program
Advisor
Whitney Schlegel
Associate Professor of Biology and Director, Human Biology
Ray Smith
Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Student Retention
SOTL Advisory Council
William Becker
Professor of Economics; Editor, Journal of Economic Education
David Boeyink
Associate Professor of Journalism
Ben Brabson
Professor Emeritus of Physics
Catherine Brown
Associate Dean for Research and Development; Professor, School of
Education; Director, Center of Reading and Learning Technology
Carolyn Calloway-Thomas
Associate Professor of Communication and Culture
Sandra Dolby
Professor of Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Kevin Glowacki
Assistant Professor of Classical Studies
Michael Hamburger
Associate Dean of Faculties and Professor of Geological Sciences
Eugene Kintgen
Associate Dean for Research and the University Graduate School;
Professor of English
Shanker Krishnan
Associate Professor of Marketing, Kelley School of Business
Patricia McDougall
Associate Dean of Academics and Professor of Strategic Management,
Kelley School of Business
Craig Nelson
Professor Emeritus of Biology and SPEA
David Pace
Associate Professor of History
David Parkhurst
Professor of Environmental Science, SPEA
Bernice Pescosolido
Chancellors’ Professor of Sociology
Craig Ross
Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Health, Physical Education
and Recreation
Anya Peterson Royce
Professor of Anthropology; Chancellors’ Professor of Comparative
Literature
Barry Rubin
Professor of SPEA
Leah Savion
Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of Undergraduate Studies
of Philosophy
Carolyn Walters
Interim Executive Associate Dean of University Libraries
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2005–2006 SOTL Events Schedule
Graduate
Education and the Scholarship
of Teaching and Learning
Orlando L. Taylor and Terrolyn
P. Carter
Co-Sponsored by the Graduate School
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
Frangipani Room, Indiana Memorial Union
Noon ‚ 1:30 pm
Lunch will be provided from 11:30
Register online
Already a leader in research and teaching among private universities
nationwide, Howard University has made highly regarded efforts to prepare
the future professoriate for the nationís colleges and universities. Among
other things, Howard produces more African American Ph.D. recipients than
any research university in the United States and contributes to several
national initiatives involving graduate education, including Preparing
Future Faculty, the Woodrow Wilson Foundationís Responsive Ph.D., and
the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate. In addition, a new graduate
seminar on the scholarship of teaching and learning was added to the curriculum
and the graduate certificate program in College and University Faculty
Preparation. Together these efforts make for a nationally recognized and
acclaimed program that prepares students to enter the nationís professoriate
with an integrated view of the many roles of a professional academic.
In this presentation, Orlando Taylor and Terrolyn Carter will discuss
how Howard University has used scholarship of teaching and learning as
a key component in a multi-faceted approach to positioning their graduate
students for successful careers in the academy.
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Howard embodies the scholarly
and intellectual pursuit of teaching and learning: professors striving
toward excellence in their teaching and monitoring of students and students,
in turn, focusing on scholarly expertise and research. The Graduate School
offers modest mini-grants to faculty/graduate student dyads to engage
in scholarly work on teaching and learning. Dr. Taylor explains, “I
believe that students should be engaged in solving problems and that learning
should direct them toward finding solutions to real world problems. Moreover,
I believe that scholarly teaching requires continuous and ongoing data
collection, analysis, and reflection, leading eventually to changes in
teaching, assessment, and student engagement.” To advance scholarship
of teaching and learning, he, his colleague Dr. Carter, and others acquired
a grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement
of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). Entitled “Learning Communities
for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Academic Achievement.î
The project focuses on increasing the participation of African American
students in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
through strategies to improve teaching and learning at four very different
historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs). The project connects
HBCUs to the national Scholarship of Teaching and Learning community,
centered around the work of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement
of Teaching. In addition to discussing various phases of their efforts
to infuse SOTL work into the preparation of doctoral students for future
faculty positions, they will describe the FIPSE project’s inter-institutional
virtual faculty and student learning communities and strategies their
learning communities have selected and piloted for improving teaching
and learning in undergraduate classrooms.
Orlando L. Taylor
Vice Provost for Research, Dean of the Graduate School, and Professor
of Communications at Howard University
Orlando L. Taylor is a national leader in graduate education and within
his discipline. He has served as Chair of the Board of Directors of the
Council of Graduate Schools and President of the Northeastern Association
of Graduate Schools, the National Communication Association and the Consortium
of Social Science Associations. He is a national leader and spokesperson
for preparing the next generation of college and university faculty members
and for enhancing access and equity in higher education. During his career
at Howard, Vice Provost Taylor has raised millions of dollars in research,
training and program development grants from federal and private sources
and has published numerous journal articles, monographs, book chapters
and books in the fields of communication disorders, sociolinguistics,
educational linguistics, intercultural communication and graduate education.
Dr. Taylor received his bachelorís degree from Hampton University, his
masterís from Indiana University, and his Ph.D. degree from the University
of Michigan. Purdue University, DePauw University and Hope College have
awarded him honorary doctoral degrees.
Terrolyn P. Carter
Coordinator of the Howard University Graduate Schoolís
Preparing Future Faculty Program
Terrolyn P. Carter is an administrator in the University’s Alliance
for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, a project of The National
Science Foundation designed to increase the number of underrepresented
minority Ph.D. recipients and faculty members in science, engineering,
technology and mathematics. She also serves as a coordinator for an innovative
project from the U.S. Department of Education to develop faculty and student
learning communities at four HBCUs, including Howard, Jackson State, Talladega,
and Xavier, to enhance academic achievement of African American students
in these same fields. Dr. Carter received her undergraduate degree from
Xavier University of Louisiana and her Ph.D. degree in Rural Sociology
from the University of Missouri–Columbia. She has held teaching
appointments at both Missouri and Howard, principally in sociology and
human development, and she has publications on topics pertaining to doctoral
education and faculty preparation. Dr. Carter represents the Howard University
Graduate School in the Research University Consortium on the Scholarship
of Teaching and Learning.
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Disciplinary
Perspectives on Evidence:
Environmental Literacy and the
Assessment of Student Learning
Eduardo Brondizio, Diane Henshel,
and Heather Reynolds. Introduction by Michael Hamburger.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Frangipani Room, Indiana Memorial Union
Noon – 1:30 pm
Lunch will be provided from 11:30
Register online
The 21st century has been dubbed “The Century of the Environment”
in recognition of the importance of the world’s diverse ecosystems
for human health, economic health, social justice, and national security
(Lubchenco 1998). Food production, the spread of infectious disease, and
military conflict over scarce resources are but a few examples of human
concerns that are deeply influenced by the state of the world’s
environment. As centers of learning, universities will face increasing
calls to address the interrelated environmental, economic, and social
challenges of 21st century society. Meeting these challenges will depend
in large part on the ability of educational institutions to produce graduates
who can think critically about the environmental, social, and economic
dimensions of human-environment interactions.
What would it mean for IU to produce “environmentally literate”
graduates? How would we know if we had done it? In this presentation,
the panelists will offer their disciplinary perspectives on what environmental
literacy means and how it can be assessed in Indiana University students.
As an early sampling, they will focus, especially, on evidence of student
learning that they are already collecting in established courses. This
approach—using the evidence teachers already have—provides
a discipline-based and “organic” way into student learning.
Those attending the session will be invited to comment on the future plans
for ELSI and on the methods proposed for collecting, assessing, and evaluating
this new kind of literacy, both within particular courses and at a campus
level.
The Environmental Literacy and
Sustainability Initiative
Now in its third year, the Environmental Literacy and Sustainability
Initiative (ELSI) aims to strengthen and extend the critical thinking
of Indiana University undergraduates about global and local environmental,
social, and economic concerns. A collaboration of professors, staff, and
students, ELSI has sought to determine what would constitute environmental
literacy from various disciplinary perspectives, including the physical
sciences, social sciences, and humanities. Its key questions have been:
“What would an environmentally literate person actually know?”
and “What teaching and learning strategies are most effective in
promoting critical and integrative thinking about the environment?”
Eduardo Brondizio, Diane Henshel, and Heather Reynolds, along with others,
have played key roles in the development of ELSI. The initiative grew
out of IU Bloomington’s Council for Environmental Stewardship (CFES).
With funding from the IU Multidisciplinary Ventures and Seminars Fund,
the College Arts and Humanities Institute, the College of Arts and Sciences,
SPEA, Campus Instructional Consulting and others, CFES launched an interdisciplinary
seminar series in 2003 to explore what might constitute environmental
literacy at Indiana University. The series featured more than 15 presenters
and attracted an average of 20 faculty members plus staff and students
across 17 disciplines. Presenters included IUB faculty from Physics, Law,
Biology, SPEA, Religious Studies, English, and many other units. Two internationally
recognized keynote speakers invited by ELSI, David Orr from Oberlin College
and Christopher Uhl from Penn State, also gave presentations as part of
the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Program, in which they described
how they developed nationally recognized programs that use innovative
teaching strategies to engage students in integrative scientific thinking.
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Collaborative
Learning: What Do Students Say?
Thomas Duffy, Gihan Osman
Friday, November 4, 2005
Frangipani Room, Indiana Memorial Union
Noon – 1:30 pm
Lunch will be provided from 11:30
Register online
Collaboration has been a dominant theme in learner-centered instruction.
Numerous research studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of collaborative
learning and Indiana University’s own National Survey of Student
Engagement places great emphasis on collaboration as an indicator of high
performing institutions. Finally, it certainly makes common sense that
an active student is likely to learn more than a passive student.
Clearly, we know from the experimental work that collaborative learning
can be effective. But how effective are collaborative learning practices
in the daily experiences of students? Do they value the experiences? If
so, why? What do they see as the key factors in successful collaborative
activities? And what do they think of as successful learning? Professor
Thomas Duffy addresses these questions based on his interviews with student
leaders in the School of Education about their experiences with small
group and whole class collaboration as well as collaborative projects.
Apparently paradoxically, while students describe collaborative experiences
among their best learning experiences, they also report that the collaborative
activities are typically a waste of time. Importantly, students value
the exchange of ideas but seldom discuss collaboration in terms of evidence-based
reasoning—rather it is a matter of sharing opinions. The presentation
will conclude with a discussion of implications for the design of collaborative
activities to promote critical thinking and evidence based reasoning.
Thomas Duffy
Barbara Jacobs Chair of Education and Technology and the founding
director of the Center for Research on Learning and Technology
The focus of Thomas Duffy’s research is on the linkage of learning
theory to the design and evaluation of learning environments. His most
recent edited book is Learner Centered Theory and Practice in Distance
Education: Case Studies from Higher Education (2004). Earlier books
on designing learning environments include New Learning (2000);
Constructivism and the Design of Instruction: A Conversation
(1992); and Designing Environments for Constructive Learning
(1993). He received his Ph.D. in psychology. Prior to coming to Indiana
University, he was a professor of English and psychology and director
of the Communication Design Center at Carnegie Mellon University.
Gihan Osman
Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Instructional Systems Technology
at Indiana University
Gihan Osman is a third-year doctoral student in Instructional Systems
Technology. Her undergraduate major was in English Literature, and her
master’s degree is in Applied Linguistics from the American University
in Cairo. Before coming to the U.S., she worked for several years as a
lecturer and researcher in the areas of language teaching and communication.
Her main research interests are web-based education and training, information
exchange in groups, and educational change in higher education. For the
past year, she has been working with the Learning to Teach with Technology
Studio as a researcher. She has also been working as a designer, researcher,
and facilitator for the Azerbaijan-Indiana University Partnership, a project
that aims to establish a distance education center and build the e-learning
capabilities of universities in Azerbaijan. Her current research focuses
on interaction, engagement, and learning in online environments. She has
presented on “The Impact of Collaboration on Individual Student
Learning” and other topics.
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Turning
a Disciplinary Lens to Teaching and
Learning Inquiry: Innovations in Testing
Whitney M. Schlegel, Associate
Professor Biology
and Director Human Biology
Friday, November 11, 2005
Frangipani Room, Indiana Memorial Union
Noon – 1:30 pm
Lunch will be available from 11:30
Register online
Often when we make changes to course content and the learning environment
we do so based almost exclusively on a “gut” feeling that
these changes will benefit our students. Applying a scholarly and disciplinary
lens to our classrooms, instead, is a more systematic and evidence-based
means of improving practice and enhancing student learning. It permits
us to apply the same standards and scholarly expectations that we have
for our disciplines to our role as teachers. By intentionally constructing
our classroom environments, we can rely on the knowledge foundations of
our discipline and reveal them to our students. We can ask questions and
obtain insights into our student’s learning through the formative
and summative assessments we use to provide student feedback and grades.
For the professor, these assessments provide an entry into the scholarship
of teaching and learning that is aligned with disciplinary ways of knowing.
Based on these assessments, she can make sound pedagogical decisions and
teaching and research roles can be more closely aligned.
In this presentation Whitney Schlegel will provide evidence of how students
are learning in an innovative case-based, team-based senior capstone course
that she teaches in human physiology. This talk will build on a presentation
about the evolution of this inquiry that she made two years ago in the
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning series. She will emphasize quantitative
evidence from exam scores to show that supplementing individual exams
with team exams can improve student performance. Further, she will show
how a SOTL study can use formative and summative data already embedded
in a course to draw conclusions about student learning. Her compelling
claim is that evidence for scholarship of teaching and learning projects
is already generated in the regular business of a course; we just have
to mine it.
Whitney M. Schlegel
Associate Professor of Biology at Indiana University and the
newly appointed Director of Human Biology
Human Biology is an integrative and multi-disciplinary research and
undergraduate degree program within the College of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Schlegel is a Carnegie Scholar with the Carnegie Foundation for the
Advancement of Teaching and Learning and is currently a lead scholar for
the 2005 Carnegie Scholar cohort whose projects have in common the exploration
of teaching and learning within an integrative or interdisciplinary context.
Dr. Schlegel has been recognized by the American Physiological Society
for her contributions to the field of teaching and learning and was awarded
the 2002, Award For Meritorious Research by a Young Investigator. She
has been an Indiana University Faculty Learning Fellow, and Chancellor’s
Service Learning Fellow and has been recognized for her excellence in
teaching.
Dr. Schlegel has published her work on teaching and learning in peer-reviewed
journals and has collaborated with colleagues within as well as outside
the discipline of science. Recently, she co-authored a chapter in a volume
of the Jossey-Bass series, New Directions in Teaching and Learning.
In this chapter of Decoding the Disciplines, she reports on her
work examining pedagogies that promote disciplinary thinking, specifically,
the habits of mind for the discipline of physiology, with a lens on the
past, present, and future learning of her students. She applies her disciplinary
perspective, specifically, environmental physiology, to the way in which
she conceives her classroom and the questions she asks about her students’
learning. This research then informs her practice by providing evidence
for good practice and a foundation for modifications of the environment
that will enhance learning. In addition, her presentation of this work
in multi-disciplinary venues provides for a broader impact and application
that helps build the field of the scholarship of teaching and learning.
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Historical
Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts:
Charting the Future of Teaching the Past
Sam Wineburg, Professor of Education,
Stanford University
Co-Sponsored by the History Department
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Georgian Room, Indiana Memorial Union
Noon – 1:30 pm
Lunch will be provided from 11:30
Register online
In the words of Lee Shulman of the Carnegie Foundation, Sam Wineburg
“has not merely contributed to our understanding of how history
is created, taught and learned; he has nearly single-handedly forged a
distinctive field of research and a new educational literature.”
Wineburg, Professor at Stanford’s School of Education, directs the
Ph.D. program in History Education, the only program of its kind in North
America. His scholarship stands at the crossroads of three distinct fields:
history, cognitive science, and education, and has appeared in such premier
and diverse outlets as Cognitive Science, Journal of American History,
Educational Leadership Phi Delta Kappan and the Los Angeles Times.
His work has been featured on C-SPAN, NPR, WBUR-Boston, and features about
him have appeared in newspapers across the nation, including the New
York Times (March 6, 2002) and the Washington Post (March
9, 2004).
Sam Wineburg
Professor of Education, Stanford University
Educated at Brown and Berkeley, Sam Wineburg spent six years teaching
history at the high school and middle school levels before completing
a doctorate in Psychological Studies in Education at Stanford. Following
graduate school, he spent twelve years at the University of Washington,
where he was Professor, Cognitive Studies in Education, and Adjunct Professor,
Department of History, the first psychologist in that university’s
history to share an appointment between departments of education and history.
In 2002 he returned to Stanford, the same year that his book, Historical
Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the
Past won the Frederic W. Ness Award from the Association of American
Colleges and Universities, for work that makes the most important contribution
to the “improvement of Liberal Education and understanding the Liberal
Arts.” He was a member of the original 1999 National Research Council/National
Academy of Science commission that produced the report, How People
Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School. His work on teacher community
(with Pam Grossman) won the 2002 “Exemplary Research on Teaching
and Teacher Education Award” from the American Educational Research
Association, and in 2004 he was named as Fellow of the Center for Advanced
Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS). He is married to Susan Monas
and is the father of Shoshana (18), Michael (16), and Raffi (15).
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Are
Instructors Presenting “Balanced” Perspectives in the Classroom?
Assessing Students’ Perceptions at Indiana University
Robert V. Robinson, Janice McCabe,
and Jeff Dixon
Friday, February 24, 2006
Frangipani Room, Indiana Memorial Union
Noon – 1:30 pm
Lunch will be provided from 11:30
Register online
“Balance” in the classroom has been the focus of recent academic
and public debate, with some calling for legislation to preclude instructors
from “indoctrinating” students. To address some students’
complaints of professor bias or “imbalance,” the “National
Campaign to Take Back Our Campuses” has been pushing for an “Academic
Bill of Rights”—authored by David Horowitz, who recently spoke
at IU Bloomington—to be passed in federal and state governments,
including Indiana. Aside from discussions and anecdotes, however, there
is virtually no systematic evidence on students’ perceptions of
balance in the classroom or on the consequences of students’ perceptions
of balance.
This research team takes the discourse surrounding “balance”
in higher education as a starting point by which to examine the impact
of students’ perceptions of balance or imbalance on their evaluations
of instructors, examine the implications of balance in the classroom on
students by analyzing the accounts of students’ academic experiences,
and consider strategies for teaching, learning, and assessment at Indiana
University. The presentation will include the results of a multi-method
study that examines quantitative course evaluation data and qualitative
data on students’ college and classroom experiences. Using the course
evaluation data, we explore the effect of measures of classroom balance
on overall course and instructor evaluations in the Department of Sociology.
If possible, these analyses will be supplemented with evaluations from
other departments and programs at IU Bloomington to explore the effects
of balance between and within departments on our campus. To complement
the quantitative data, we use qualitative data which asks students open-ended
questions about their classroom experiences to assess how important balance
in the classroom is to them. The presentation will consider the contentious
policy and theoretical debates and practical pedagogical benefits for
students and instructors, and provide the groundwork for a lively discussion
of pedagogical considerations surrounding what we do (and do not) know
about balance in the classroom.
Robert V. Robinson
The Class of 1964 Chancellor’s Professor and Chair of
the Department of Sociology
Robert V. Robinson received his A.B. from Brown University and his M.A.
and Ph.D. from Yale University. Professor Robinson has used comparative
and historical methods to address a broad range of questions in social
stratification, economic history, and the sociology of religion: How does
belief in the American Dream shape popular attitudes toward social justice?
Why did factories develop as a form of production in 19th century America?
How did families living in Indianapolis in the late-19th and early-20th
centuries make ends meet in the face of economic hardships? Why is trust
in others declining in the United States? How does the division between
the religiously orthodox and theological modernists affect cultural and
economic beliefs in the United States, Europe, and predominantly Muslim
nations? What bolsters Americans’ sense of community? How have the
values that U.S. adults want to see fostered in children changed over
the last two decades?
Professor Robinson has published numerous articles in the American
Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, and Social
Forces, and was a founding editor of Research in Social Stratification
and Mobility. At Indiana, he has twice served as Director of the Institute
for Social Research and as Director of Undergraduate Studies. Robinson,
who equally enjoys teaching large sections of introductory sociology and
small graduate seminars, is the recipient of the Edwin H. Sutherland Award
for Excellence in and Commitment to Teaching, the Trustees Teaching Award,
the Outstanding Mentor Award of the Department of Sociology, and the IU
system-wide Sylvia E. Bowman Award for Distinguished Teaching. He is currently
co-director (with Bernice Pescosolido and Brian Powell) of the Sociology
Department’s Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program, which was awarded
the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Contributions
to Teaching Award in 2001.
Janice McCabe
Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University
Janice McCabe has taught courses on gender, childhood and youth, research
methods, and teaching undergraduate sociology. She participates in the
Preparing Future Faculty program, was a Faculty Fellow at DePauw University,
and chaired the Planning Committee for the Ninth Annual Preparing Future
Faculty Conference, “Crafting Your Career: From Student to Professional.”
With the support of the National Science Foundation and the Association
for the Study of Higher Education/Lumina Foundation, her dissertation
uses in-depth individual interviews, focus groups, and egocentric network
data on friendship to examine how students navigate the academic-social
divide in college life at a large, predominantly white university. She
is particularly interested in the relationship between academic and social
life and ethnicity, gender, and student organizations. Her research and
teaching interests are in the sociology of education, race, class and
gender, childhood and youth, sociology of sexuality and the scholarship
of teaching and learning.
Jeff Dixon
Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at Indiana University
Jeff Dixon’s broad research interests include race and ethnicity,
political sociology, and social stratification. Some of his previous and
current projects include an analysis of the roles that group threat and
contact play in shaping prejudice, an examination of the factors that
shape racial wage inequality (with Dr. Quincy Stewart), a study of the
state-level determinants of anti-welfare attitudes before and after the
welfare reform of 1996 (with Andrew Fullerton), and this examination of
how “balance” affects instructor and course evaluations (with
Janice McCabe). His dissertation explores the roles that Islam, modernization,
and globalization play in producing liberal-democratic value convergence
and divergence among European Union member and candidate states. Jeff
has taught Introductory Sociology at Indiana University several times
and is a recipient of the Department of Sociology’s Sutherland Teaching
Award.
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Enriching
Team Competency through
Diversity Immersion Projects
Carolyn Wiethoff, Clinical Assistant
Professor, Department of Management, Kelley School of Business
Friday, March 24, 2006
State Room East, Indiana Memorial Union
Noon – 1:30 pm
Lunch will be provided from 11:30
Register online
The ability to work, skillfully, with widely diverse people is an important
goal for all students enrolled in higher education and has become an imperative
in the workforce. Many courses at the University attempt to address this
proficiency, often by simply putting students in contact with people unlike
themselves. But how can educators know that students are learning and
what they are learning through this contact? How do we know if the diversity-enriching
experiences we provide for our students transfer outside of the classroom
context, deepening the potential for real interactions in the broader
world in which they live?
In this presentation, Carolyn Wiethoff will discuss her study of the
transitions IU undergraduate business students make while immersing themselves
in a population of which they are not a member. Wiethoff employs the “Contact
Hypothesis” which proposes that contact between members of an in-group
and an out-group can be expected to replacing in-group ignorance with
first-hand knowledge. This knowledge disconfirms stereotypes and improves
the attitudes of the insiders toward the outsiders. Wiethoff, however,
pushes the traditional boundaries of this theory to ask why and how immersion
teaches students to interact with diverse others on work teams. Through
normed surveys and student progress reports, she will address the question
of how generalizable these experiences with an out-group are. That is,
will students be able to transfer their new-found openness to a variety
of circumstances they have yet to experience? Funded by a grant from Indiana
University’s Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Program, this
project will provide the basis for a rich discussion about student exposure
to diversity-enriching experiences, immersion as a method for facilitating
such experiences, and the future direction of generalizing diversity training.
Carolyn Wiethoff
Clinical Assistant Professor of Management at Indiana University’s
Kelly School of Business
Carolyn Wiethoff received her Ph.D. in Management and Human Resources
from Ohio State University, and also holds an M.A. in Speech Communication
from Indiana University. Her research interests include diversity in the
workplace, trust, distrust, and trust repair, as well as managing conflict
in environmental disputes. Specifically, she investigates the kinds of
diversity management programs recruits prefer and the effects of these
programs on attitudes and other outcome measures. She also studies the
effects of hidden diversity, such as sexual orientation and religion,
on work groups. Dr. Wiethoff teaches negotiation in both the undergraduate
and M.B.A. programs and serves as an executive board member of the Organizational
Behavior Division of the Academy of Management. Recently, she published
articles in Making Sense of Intractable Environmental Disputes
(Gray and Elliot, eds.), Human Resource Management for Virtual Organizations
(Heneman and Greenberger, eds.), Journal of Homosexuality, Justice
in the Work Place (Vol. II) (Cropanzano, ed.), and The Handbook
of Conflict Resolution (Deutsch and Coleman, eds.).
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Visual
Learning in Social Science:
the Graphic Novel as an Exemplar
Laurel L. Cornell, Associate Professor,
Departments of Sociology, Gender Studies, and East Asian Languages and
Cultures
Friday, April 7, 2006
Stateroom East, Indiana Memorial Union
Noon – 1:30 pm
Lunch will be provided from 11:30
Register online
It is easy to find quantitative data that students can analyze to address
various social problems. University-level courses can utilize data from
government sources, locally-conducted surveys, online repositories, and
elsewhere. More difficult is engaging students so that they understand
these issues as complex and real-world, affecting people’s lives.
Visual methods of learning are one way to reach students who increasingly
live in a world dominated by visual media.
Professor Laurel Cornell has been investigating the possibilities of
having students create and critique exemplars of their own making in an
effort to move them closer to a representative understanding of complex
issues. She has tried to capitalize on students’ visual skills by
using “structured drawing” to develop their critical thinking
and disciplinary knowledge. In four very different sociology courses—two
on the built environment, one on families in Japan, and one on gender
and population—she has students write graphic novels that tell a
story of a social problem principally through pictures, rather than through
words. The graphic novels build on what students already know through
a medium they are confident in using and critiquing. By considering these
individually constructed exemplars, Professor Cornell intends that students
will work developmentally, from less nuanced exemplars to more complex,
higher stakes mental representations of real social phenomena. Students,
in turn, are enthusiastic about the assignments and engaged in the topics.
Frequently, they achieve a level of detail and information greater than
they would convey in a written paper on the same topic. This talk will
discuss the theoretical value of visualization to develop critical thinking
and discipline-specific learning. And it will investigate the particular
use of graphic novels in a sociology course, including how this work can
be assessed and how it can contribute to learning and teaching in other
social sciences and other fields. This presentation will use undergraduate
students as collaborators in assessing what their peers gain by doing
structured drawing. Professor Cornell will welcome discussion about the
teaching and assessment methods proposed and their application to other
fields.
Laurel Cornell
Associate professor in the departments of Sociology, Gender Studies,
and East Asian Languages and Cultures at Indiana University
Laurel Cornell holds a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture
from the University of Virginia and a Ph.D. in Social Relations from The
Johns Hopkins University. Her research centers on the question “How
does the built environment influence human behavior?” She is working
to develop methods for analyzing the built environment from a sociological
point of view. Through that experience she has become increasingly interested
in analyzing how visual methods can contribute to student learning. In
her teaching Professor Cornell emphasizes visual methods of learning and
student involvement in the community (service-learning). In addition to
that research project, she is also working on a visual representation
of the social history of the Interstate Highway System. In Bloomington
she serves on several community boards and commissions dealing with issues
in urban planning, historical preservation, enhancement of natural resources,
and public art. She also serves as Co-Director of the Indiana Limestone
Heritage Parks project.
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SOTL
Spring Poster Session and Celebration
Thursday, April 14, 2005
Frangipani Room, 11:30-1:30
Lunch provided from 11:30
Register online
Please join your colleagues and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
and Dean of the Faculties Jeanne Sept for an informational overview and
celebration of the year’s scholarship of teaching and learning successes.
The gathering will feature poster presentations, preprints, reprints,
and other materials that represent recent work by local scholars of teaching
and learning. Because of the growing number of projects to be reported
on, this event has moved from the University Club to the more spacious
Frangipani Room and will feature more time for discussion with the presenters.
If you have new work or other achievements you would like to share, please
contact Sharon Smith at smiths@indiana.edu
or 855-9023.
This closing session of the SOTL season has become a traditional
opportunity to touch base with SOTL colleagues before the summer. Please
drop by for lunch, browsing, and conversation beginning at 11:30.
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SOTL
Writing Retreat
Cosponsored by the Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning Program and the Campus Writing Program
May 12 and May 13, 2005
8:30 am–4:00 pm
Devault Alumni Center, 1000 East 17th Street
Application deadline: March 22, 2005
Candidates will be notified by April 1, 2005
Register online
Even while working on one research project, we often have questions,
data, even drafts of other projects simmering until the right time to
work on them emerges. This two-day SOTL Writing Retreat is designed to
create time, place, and critical feedback for a teaching and learning
project you would like to publish. Consultants will be on hand to answer
questions, provide feedback, and otherwise help you make the most of two
full days devoted to writing.
The retreat will run May 11 and 12 in the Devault Alumni Center at Indiana
University. It will be facilitated by SOTL Program Director Jennifer Robinson
and Campus Writing Program Director Laura Plummer. Any member of the IU
Bloomington faculty, staff, and graduate student body who is at any phase
of a scholarship of teaching and learning article, grant application,
or proposal—from brainstorming, reflecting, designing, outlining,
revising, to polishing—is eligible to submit a proposal. Collaborative
teams are also encouraged to apply. Comments from last year’s participants
included: “The time to write and setting goals helped a lot!”
“Solid chunks of uninterrupted writing time, and the ability to
do that writing in a community of peers.” “The experience
paid off for me—I was able to make substantial progress finishing
a difficult chapter.”
The Retreat’s Goals:
• To help scholars dedicate time for writing and provide them
with a sense of a supportive community
• To provide scholars with constructive feedback from peers
on ideas, research design, data analysis, and paper drafts
• To help scholars formalize and organize their thinking about
teaching and learning in writing so that it can be shared with their peers
• To make available to participating scholars the latest theory
and research in the field by means of a research assistant available to
do custom web searches
• To encourage and support writing aimed at scholarly publication.
The Schedule
The SOTL Writing Retreat is scheduled for two full days, 8:30 a.m. to
4:00 p.m. Participants will be expected to attend the entire retreat and
one reunion meeting during the 2006–07 academic year (date TBA).
Each participant will receive a complete set of successful proposals prior
to the retreat.
Most of each day during the retreat will be devoted to self-directed
writing. Optional peer writing feedback groups and one-on-one project
consultations will also be available throughout the day. Lisa Kurz, an
assessment specialist with Instructional Support Services, will be on
hand for those working on quantitative projects. Participants must bring
their own laptops or other writing instruments. Breakfast and lunch will
be provided.
Guidelines for Proposals
Please include a cover-sheet that gives your name, department, office
address, telephone number, email address, and the title of the scholarship
of teaching and learning project you want to work on during the retreat.
Include this cover sheet with the materials in your proposal,
described below.
In no more than two, single-spaced pages, please include:
• A brief description of your scholarship of teaching and
learning project
• The type of project you will be working on (e.g., research,
grant, essay)
• The phase of writing you expect to be in during the retreat
(e.g., brainstorming, reflecting, outlining, designing, literature reviewing,
analyzing, revising, polishing)
• What you plan to accomplish during the retreat
• How the retreat will help you to move your project toward
publication
• Any special needs you have.
You may also attach any other documentation you think may be helpful
in describing your project.
Please send the complete proposal package as an email attachment
or on paper to:
Sharon Smith
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Program
Franklin Hall 004
smiths@indiana.edu
If you have any questions about the retreat, please contact Jennifer
Robinson at (855-9023 or jenmetar@indiana.edu).
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