Scholarship Philosophy: Question. Deliberate. Collaborate.
As a scholar, I seek to investigate teaching and learning practice and theory to deepen and share knowledge with peers.
Scholarship Action Plan: Believing that effective teaching and effective scholarship are inseparable, I seek to question what is known and collaborate in adding to new knowledge in scholarly and professional communities.
Highlights of Achievements in Scholarly Practice: To date, my most significant research has been published in College Teaching, a double blind peer reviewed scholarly journal published by Taylor and Francis for 65 years providing “an interdisciplinary academic forum on issues in teaching and learning at the undergraduate or graduate level”. Working as the lead author, I collaborated with Laura Westengard of English and received contributions from Jean Hillstrom of Social Science. In our full length article, “Comparing Faculty and Student Perception of Academic Performance, Classroom Behavior, and Social Interactions in Learning Communities”, we explored student and faculty perceptions and how differences and similarities in both might impact classroom dynamics. We deliberately strayed from the traditional research in learning communities that looks at student success and sought new approaches to improve faculty training and retention in learning communities.
One of the rewards of being actively involved in a variety of initiatives throughout the college is the opportunity to work collaboratively with peers. As the lead instructor, my research with Anne Leonard of the Library, sought to explain how faculty fellows in the Living Lab General Education seminar evaluated and redesigned their courses to include place-based learning activities, intended to engage students in their general education curriculum. The findings show that fellows perceived, among other findings, that place-based learning effectively met general education learning outcomes, resulting in deeper student engagement with the course material than through more traditional classroom approaches. The article “Place-Based Learning across the Disciplines: A Living Laboratory Approach to Pedagogy¸” is published in the 2018 volume of Insight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching, a scholarly referred journal published annually is “designed to highlight the work of postsecondary faculty”. This volume has an acceptance rate of 27.27%.
Internationally, my scholarly peer-reviewed conference presentations at the Association of American Colleges and Universities General Education and Assessment Conference, has clearly communicated the college’s general education initiatives, specifically, the ways in which the Living Lab contributes to measurable student learning outcomes across disciplines.
