The scholarship of teaching and learning not only has been gaining traction at WSU, but it is earning national recognition.
This summer WSU faculty working with the Center for Teaching, Learning and Technology won their fourth National University Telecommunications Network best research award in the last six years.
“CTLT and WSU faculty are really serious about the scholarship of teaching and learning, and the research awards that we are earning are not the reward, but the evidence,” said Gary Brown, director of the center.
CTLT’s reputation is such that the U.S. Department of Education sometimes refers faculty from other universities to WSU to learn about CTLT’s research, Brown said.
“In our research, we don’t ask the question, ‘Does technology work?’ Technology is not going away,” he said. Instead, “we keep the focus on teaching and learning issues and principles that will endure beyond the rapidly changing technology horizon.”
Assessment a winner
A common thread in much of the center’s research, Brown said, is assessment specifically, how to use assessment to help create more meaningful learning experiences.
Instead of assessment being the final step of the teaching process, it is seen as central to the learning process, he said. Reliable, authentic assessment often clarifies the difference between a “teaching-centered” environment and a “learning-centered” environment.
The 2006 award-winning paper, titled “Online Student Evaluations and Response Rates Reconsidered,” was published in Innovate, an online peer-reviewed journal, in 2006. It was a collaboration between Joan Anderson, an associate professor in apparel merchandising, design and textiles, Brown, and Stephen Spaeth, a design consultant with CTLT.
Feedback considered
Drawing principally from a study of online student evaluations in the College of Agriculture, Human and Natural Resource Sciences, the findings suggest that variation in student response rates has less to do with whether the evaluation is done online or on paper and more to do with student engagement with the evaluation process.
If students perceive that their feedback and/or evaluation will be thoughtfully considered and responded to, they are more likely to take the time to complete an evaluation, whether it is online or paper-and-pencil.
Those courses that have the highest response rates, Brown said, tend to be courses where the instructor periodically has asked for feedback and has responded to it during the semester.
Another key finding was that departments with the highest response rates had leaders who were engaged with the evaluation process and the decision to do evaluations online.
AAU aspirations
“As we push for AAU status,” Brown said, “CTLT is interested in working with more faculty who want to pursue research about teaching and learning.”
Other WSU papers to win the National University Technology Network top award focused on assessing course design, faculty motivation for teaching with technology and student perceptions of assessment.
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