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2004—2005 SOTL Introductory Messages
A Message from Vice Chancellor for Academic
Affairs and Dean of the Faculties Jeanne Sept
I am pleased to send to you the schedule for the sixth year of the Scholarship
of Teaching and Learning Initiative at Indiana University Bloomington.
This year’s sessions will confirm the high-quality, innovative work
we have come to expect from our local SOTL scholars. It will also position
IU Bloomington even more firmly as a leader in scholarship of teaching
and learning, nationally and internationally.
Over lunch and collegial conversation, we will gather again to share
questions and discoveries related to teaching and learning. This year’s
presentations will be especially useful in helping us to understand and
amplify the breadth of scholarship focused on teaching and learning on
our campus, and beyond. While some of the sessions will hinge on evidence
of methodological success and student learning, others will explore promising
approaches and help to build our thinking toward more overarching theories
and purposes in higher education. Some presenters will probe the in-class
teaching and learning environment, including student misconceptions and
professionally based active learning, while others will examine work skills,
identity and social development, and cultural assumptions that impact
the student learning experience. In addition several sessions will include
graduate student researchers who can speak to the roles of scholarship
of teaching and learning in graduate education. All the sessions will
suggest a bridge between what and how we teach and how we pursue our own
disciplinary research. Our research faculty has a special role in developing
knowledge and leading SOTL practice for our colleagues around the country
and around the world.
In October, hundreds of those colleagues will gather in Bloomington for
the inaugural meeting of the International Society for the Scholarship
of Teaching and Learning. Emerging from discussions among IUB faculty
and graduate students at two SOTL retreats in 2002, this new society plans
to encourage cross-disciplinary conversations that “create synergy
across disciplines” and offer “far-reaching possibilities
for integrating discovery, learning and public engagement.” The
scholars who will attend from around the world are remarkable for both
their achievements within specialized fields of disciplinary study and
their careful thinking about teaching and learning. I am most pleased
that IU Bloomington will be represented by more than 60 faculty, staff,
and graduate students who will be among the nearly 300 people presenting
at this conference. I hope many more members of the IU community will
attend the conference to contribute their own insights and critical feedback
to the emerging conversation.
Indeed, I hope that your own projects will join the growing body of SOTL
presentations and publications emerging from our campus. As with all of
our scholarship, the truest measure of SOTL’s success is the quality
of the work that our faculty publishes. Please know that our office stands
ready to assist individual faculty with SOTL projects and to help form
and support research teams.
I look forward to talking with you at this year’s SOTL events.
Jeanne Sept is Professor of Anthropology and Vice Chancellor of Academic
Affairs and Dean of the Faculties. Formerly the chair of the Department
of Anthropology, she investigates proto-human subsistence ecology as a
means to understanding human origins. Curious to understand how ancient
environmental conditions would have influenced the dietary adaptations
and ranging patterns of our early hominid ancestors in Africa, she has
studied modern savanna environments analogous to early hominid habitats
where sites have been preserved. Her publications include journal articles,
such as “Was there no place like home?” (Current Anthropology)
and “Beyond bones: archaeological sites, early hominid subsistence,
and the costs and benefits of exploiting wild plant foods in east African
riverine landscapes” (Journal of Human Evolution), as well
as an instructional CD-ROM “Investigating Olduvai. The archaeology
of human origins” (Indiana University Press). She has also collaborated
with IU colleague Martin Siegel on a federally funded project to develop
and assess digital learning environments for archaeology students.
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IU SOTL Initiative Begins Sixth Year
This is a year of going public with SOTL. The scholarship of teaching
and learning at IU is moving firmly into a public phase that will be essential
to its vibrancy, longevity, and impact. In 1999, when groups of faculty
members met for exploratory conversations about how to foster significant,
long-lasting learning for all students, few had systematically studied
teaching and learning among their own students. Some of their first questions—How
do we know students are learning? How can we use student performance to
improve teaching? What is the good literature on teaching? How can we
get students more engaged? Who else is interested in these issues?—remain
important questions and have grown to inform five years of careful inquiry,
presentations, knowledge-sharing, and companionship.
As we begin the sixth year of gatherings, dozens of Bloomington faculty
and graduate students have gone public with their scholarship of teaching
in presentations and publications. Earlier this year, Indiana University
Press published an anthology drawn from the early years of the SOTL presentation
series. In New Directions in Teaching and Learning, 15 IU faculty
members “decode” discipline-based learning. This October,
more than 60 IU Bloomington faculty and graduate students will present
their work at the inaugural meeting of the International Society
for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, which will be held
on campus. Through books, conferences, and numerous other presentations,
chapters, and articles, IU faculty and students together continue to build
the field of SOTL and expand our understanding of how it can be applied.
Throughout this year, we will hear about many new and compelling projects
at our customary lunchtime colloquia, led by local scholars.
Each scholar will pose interesting questions about teaching and learning
and also model diverse approaches to studying those questions as they
take up the challenge implicit in the scholarship of teaching and learning:
to bring the same habits of mind to teaching as we do to disciplinary
scholarship. As always, you are welcome to consider their recommendations
for applying their work and also to adapt their methods, test their findings,
and otherwise build on what they are doing.
Indeed, I hope you will pose your own questions and add to our understanding
of disciplinary learning and teaching. The SOTL web site (www.indiana.edu/~sotl)
features a growing bibliography of more than 70 publications
by IU scholars. If you have a project percolating, you are welcome to
attend one of the toolbox sessions this fall or the two-day
writing retreat in May, all designed to help you disseminate
your thinking about teaching and learning. A poster session
at the spring celebration in April will showcase current scholarly activity
among members of the campus community and create the chance for formative
conversations between authors and readers. Of course, individualized
services are always available, including assistance with human
subjects protocols, literature review, data gathering, analysis, and writing.
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning program aims fully to support
the research talents and critical skills of the faculty, helping you go
public with your studies, documentation, and theories about learning and
teaching. The Advisory Council and the Steering Committee are responsive
to faculty interests and needs. If you have suggestions, comments, or
interests you would like to pursue, please don’t hesitate to speak
to a member or to contact me (jenmetar@indiana.edu/812-855-9023).
You can read more about IU’s Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Program and its awards and achievements—including the 2003 Hesburgh
Award, eight Carnegie Scholar Awards, the 2004 Indiana University Press
volume, and the Research University Consortium on SOTL—at www.indiana.edu/~sotl.
–Jennifer Meta RobinsonCoordinator, Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning Program
Jennifer Meta Robinson directs the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Program and Campus Instructional Consulting at Indiana University Bloomington.
She also co-directs the Faculty Learning Community project and coordinates
IU’s participation in the Pew-funded Peer Review of Teaching Course
Portfolio Initiative and the AAHE/Carnegie Research University Consortium
for the Advancement of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. In conference
papers and presentations on SOTL, course portfolios, and IU programs,
Dr. Robinson highlights the important work of the IU faculty on SOTL,
contributes her own insights to our understanding of educational issues,
and looks for the best ideas to bring back to Bloomington. Her doctorate,
in English, is from Indiana University. She is the author of articles
and book chapters on scholarship of teaching and learning, literature,
and folklore and has presented on these topics around the country and
abroad. She is a founding member and a conference organizer of the International
Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Her teaching experience
spans 15 years and four universities and has special concentration on
students traditionally underrepresented in higher education.
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