Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

“What if inside every teacher was a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project waiting to be brought to life?”

Gary Poole (2013)

“Learning Together: A Case Study in Applying Peer Learning to a Computer Science Curriculum“

Existing literature on the topic of peer learning places heavy emphasis on collaborative writing courses which were designed from the ground up with peer learning in mind.  This research is a case study on the application of peer learning to an existing computer science curriculum.  We provide a review of existing literature on the topic, design a system of peer learning which is meant to supplement an existing curriculum and which is informed by existing research in the space, assess the effectiveness of our system, and provide recommendations for educators looking to implement peer learning in their classroom.

Do happier students perform better academically? In the spring of 2020 and again in 2021, I explored different factors that affect either happiness or academic success with my Introduction to Statistics students. The goals of these explorations were to (1) teach students the usefulness of statistical methods in understanding a “problem”, (2) raise students’ awareness of the different factors that may personally affect them, and (3) determine which, if any, standard college practices affect students well-being (e.g., mid-terms, morning classes, late nights, jobs, clubs, etc.).

We know that college students who participate in experiential activities (defined as an internship, volunteer, and/or work-study experiences that take place outside the traditional classroom) generally report a higher sense of engagement and personal development, and are retained at greater numbers. I have been attempting to gauge students’ perceptions of their own experiential education experiences at Champlain as well as their comprehension of experiential education itself. I would like to understand students’ perception of the skills and knowledge they have acquired, or are acquiring, as well as the student’s perception of their value, in order to start to quantify whether and how experiential education is adding to their career preparation and college experience overall. 

How do students learn and how can I use that information to improve my teaching? These are the questions that challenge me every time I approach the classroom. In particular, I have struggled over the years to create an assignment in which students demonstrate their skills and learning. After trying multiple formats and tweaking assignments with little impact, I turned to the students for feedback. I tried to understand my assignments from their perspectives. I collected data from read-aloud protocols over a couple of semesters and after analyzing them found that what I expected from the students was much different than what they were actually doing.