May 2008 ISSOTL Newsletter Available

The May 2008 issue of The International Commons is now available on the ISSOTL website. (Click “Newsletter.”) In this issue, you’ll find the following, and more:

• what’s hot in the Australasian region,
• how ISSOTL started,
• reviews of a symposium in the UK, a poster session in the US, and a conference in the US,
• concrete suggestions for increasing SOTL involvement of underrepresented people,
• successes of various communities of practice,
• a SOTL grants program that seeks greater impact,
• a recent event that may influence the future of SOTL in Canada,
• a project that will help students break through their misconceptions about history,
• 20 biologists exploring student learning,
• the newly elected ISSOTL officers,
• Commons Corner announcements, and of course
• Upcoming SOTL events.

The next issue will be in October, with submissions due by October 1. If you have comments or questions, contact editor Nancy Chick at nancy.chick@uwc.edu.

2nd International Pedagogical Research in Higher Education conference

2nd International Pedagogical Research in Higher Education (PRHE) conference

Monday 16th to Tuesday 17th June 2008

Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, UK

We are pleased to announce that the second international conference of Pedagogical Research in Higher Education (PRHE) in 2008 will be held in Liverpool in its year as European Capital of Culture. At this, the most exciting time in the city’s history, the conference will be held in the attractive and leafy campus of Liverpool Hope University. The purpose of the biennial PRHE conferences is to bring together researchers and scholars from a number of countries to encourage and raise the profile of pedagogical research in university teaching and learning. In 2006, we attracted delegates from 14 countries including Canada, USA, India, Nigeria and Norway. Like its predecessor, this conference will have a maximum of 200 participants in order to focus on high quality research and to facilitate ongoing networks with the potential for future research collaborations. To help this process, this year, we are introducing Research Interest Groups (RIGs), which will enable colleagues to meet and discuss collaboration, research ideas, etc. We are very pleased that Professor Lewis Elton has agreed to lead one such group on ‘Academic writing’.

The overall theme for PRHE 2008 is ‘Curriculum Change for Learning’.

Subthemes:

• Innovating the curriculum for lifelong learning

• Developing curriculum for the 21st century

• Implementing curriculum change in a traditional context

• Students’ and lecturers’ expectations of the curriculum

• Curriculum change from the subject perspective

• A scholarship of learning and teaching approach to the curriculum

We are especially pleased to announce our keynote speakers:

Professor Ron Barnett, University of London, UK.

Professor Ference Marton, Goteborg University, Sweden.

Professor John T. E. Richardson, The Open University, UK.

and our after dinner speaker: Professor Laurie Taylor.

Prices:

Full residential: £300 (includes 2 nights accommodation at Liverpool Hope, meals, conference attendance, reception at Tate Liverpool and conference dinner at the Merseyside Maritime Museum)

Non-residential: £200 (includes conference attendance, reception at Tate Liverpool and conference dinner at the Merseyside Maritime Museum)

For further details on RIGs, our speakers and prices and to book your place, please go to the conference website www.hope.ac.uk/learningandteaching/prhe/

Eportfolio research as scholarship of teaching and learning

In the Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research, campus teams do inquiry into questions about learning related to the use of eportfolios. The scope of the work may be campus wide, such as at IUPUI and Thomas College; specific to a discipline or profession, such as at Clemson University and Virgina Tech University; or even statewide, such as in Ohio and Minnesota. But, no matter what the scope, the focus is on student learning, on analyzing electroni portfolios as the site of generating and assessing that learning.

I've been thinking lately about how eportfolio research is the scholarship of teaching and learning because it emerges from practice, i.e. how to more accurately, fairly, and innovatively encourage developmental, reflective, and integrative learning; involves designed inquiries; is open to use and critique; and adds to the knowledge base about teaching and learning.

The Inter/National Coalition for Electronic Portfolio Research supports opening critique and use of emerging knowledge from its member teams through semi-annual meetings of cohorts in the Coalition, presentations at other meetings and conferences, and shared reports of progress on the Coalition's website. I'm interested in knowing if ISSOTL members are reading about this scholarly work on eportfolios at http://ncepr.org. Have you found what is posted useful in thinking about designing scholarly work of your own about any aspect of teaching and learning? Have you responded to any of the research teams who have posted their progress or final reports? Are different groups like the Coalition and ISSOTL having any crossover in learning from one another?

Second Call for submissions - Transformative Dialogues

Colleagues

This is a second call for submissions for our next issue of Kwantlen's eJournal:
Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal.
http://www.kwantlen.ca/academicgrowth/TD/.

Volume 2, Number 1 - Exploring the Range, Assessment and Dissemination of Scholarly Activity in Teaching and Learning

What is Scholarly Activity in Relationship to Teaching and Learning? How Do We Assess Scholarships other than Academic Papers? We believe that in a broad definition of Scholarly Activity that includes scholarly teaching which we define as the application of teaching and learning principles to the practice of teaching to enable more effective teaching strategies and learning outcomes. Share your experiences and research around scholarly activities as it relates to teaching and learning and how we assess and disseminate our work.

We encourage a variety of digital formats that encompass:
Inquiry Articles (2,000 to 8,000 words)
Essays (2,000 to 5,000 words)
Service Projects (2,000 to 8,000 words)
Personal Reflections (500 to 1,500 words)
Images and other (new) media
Artifacts including presentations, poetry, etc.

Submission Deadline: May 15, 2008 - Publication: August 1, 2008.

All submissions must be received by May 15, 2008 as an unformatted Word or text document attached to an email to TD@kwantlen.ca.

Transformative Dialogues is a forum for conversations intended to foster the improvement of adult teaching and learning. TD facilitates the multi-disciplinary exchange of ideas, actions, and results of innovative and professional practice in the scholarship of teaching and learning. These conversations are intended to span a wide range of reflections on the processes of teaching and learning ranging from the scholarly to scholarship. Reflections and understandings shared are focused on improving student and faculty learning, and critical thought processes in their current and future life long learning. We understand that scholarship may play out differently in different disciplines, but the basic principles should be consistent (Boyer, 1992).

Our journal adopts the principle that strategies, techniques and methods of teaching and learning transcend the boundaries of specific subject fields. We welcome relevant contributions from diverse settings such as academia, vocational training, continuing professional development, workplace learning, selected commercial exemplars, and social networking via communications technologies.

I hope that you will join in the dialogue with us in our venture to improve our understanding about the scholarship of teaching and learning.

looking forward

Alice Macpherson & Dr. Balbir Gurm
Technical Editor & Editor in Chief
Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal
The Centre for Academic Growth
Kwantlen Polytechnic University
www.kwantlen.ca/academicgrowth