Research your coursesand publish your findings

UC Seminar Series

Dr. David Palfreyman

Your “I wonder...”

What is scholarship?

• The scholarship of discovery;• The scholarship of integration;• The scholarship of application/ engagement• The scholarship of teaching and learning

(SoTL)

Boyer, E. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered.

SoTL journals

• The Mentor http://dus.psu.edu/mentor/

• The WAC Journal http://wac.colostate.edu/journal/

• Global-e http://global-ejournal.org/tag/education/

Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives (LTHE)

• refereed journal

• presents and discusses issues and research of relevance to university and college educators in the Arab Gulf Region

• people teaching in any discipline, or supporting learning in other ways

• worldwide readership

Research articles and reflections

Research articles• present original research which contributes to knowledge about

learning or teaching in the Gulf context.

Reflections• describe an experience (e.g. teaching a particular course or using

a particular method);• analyze critically what students and/or teacher learnt from this

experience;• include reference to other sources to support ideas (but not

necessarily a 'literature review' as in a research paper);• present a variety of evidence to support the points made (e.g.

students’ feedback, observation, assessment results).

Some recent articles in LTHE Articles:Stress in higher education: a study of mismatched instruction as a contributing factor in female Emirati undergraduate students (ALAlami et al.) Awareness and perceptions of available Major programs by first year Zayed University students (Gallacher et al.)‘Shababbery’ and ‘banattitude’: Western ELT professionals’ perceptions of the role of gender in English-medium higher educational institutions in the Gulf (Hudson)

Reflections:Utilizing active learning strategies to enhance learning in first year University Chemistry courses (Pappalardo & Gunn)Finding sonnets about sand: using local voices in literature classrooms(Risse)

Your “I wonder...”

• What data would help you to understand your question about your course(s)?

• Preferably choose data which you will have anyway (e.g. student scores, observation of what happens, maybe some student reflections).

Research ethics

• See handout.

Questions?