Teaching, learning, and retention processes have evolved historically to include multifaceted techniques beyond the traditional lecture. This article presents related results of a study using a healthcare learning community in a southwest Georgia university. The value of novel techniques and tools in promoting student learning and retention…

A goal of higher education is to advance learning. This study examined the role "comfortability" plays in that process. Defined as the level of comfort students experience with their classmates, instructor, and course material, comfortability addresses how secure a student feels in the classroom. Comfortability was assessed multiple…

The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) enables colleges and universities to assess student learning and measure the outcomes by engaging in meaningful research, and to disseminate this research. The objective of this paper is to give a snapshot of and assess the current thinking behind this scholarship by presenting examples of SoTL, and…

This paper discusses the effectiveness of the videoconferencing software Blackboard Collaborate for carrying out instruction at college level to students attending classes synchronously at multiple locations. The paper describes the motivation for this study, a brief literature review on the subject, the methodology used, and the results obtained.…

This article examines a technique for engaging critical thinking on multiple-choice exams. University students were encouraged to "challenge" the validity of any exam question they believed to be unfair (e.g., more than one equally correct answer, ambiguous wording, etc.). The number of valid challenges a student wrote was a better…

This paper argues that the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) matters on at least six interrelated levels. First, SoTL matters because learning matters, and SoTL can help students learn more effectively. Second, it offers professors the tools to more effectively share their disciplinary passions. Third, it offers faculty an avenue for…

The presence of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), or its absence, has greatly impacted my undergraduate studies. While professors are experts in their subject matter, they do not always know how to reach students. SoTL provides resources to address such disconnects. Just-in-time teaching (JiTT) is one example of a SoTL-informed teaching…

My departure from traditional methods of teaching and assessment (i.e., lecture and close-ended exams) was prompted years ago by a "gut feeling" that has morphed into an explicit examination of my teaching practice and students' reactions to it. The scholarly approach and empirical evidence in "Teachers and Learning"…

Through my college experience and my reflection on The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Reconsidered, I have come to recognize several ideas that have greatly impacted me, my views on learning, and my actual learning. My overall experience in college has been beneficial because of the teachers who approached teaching with a more conscious…

As a reflection on O'Meara, Terosky, and Neumann's (2011) work on scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) faculty development, this essay describes the benefits of SoTL to individual faculty and university goals. In support and expansion of arguments advanced by O'Meara et al., this work calls for the use of SoTL faculty…

O'Meara, Terosky, and Neumann (2011) revealed a need to integrate faculty teaching and learning centers with research development programs to further both individual professors' goals of creating innovative pedagogical practices and institutional goals for faculty publication and effective decision making regarding funding allocation.…

Institutional assessment initiatives can provide opportunities to make the intellectual work of teaching and learning in composition studies more visible. Reciprocally, the scholarship of teaching and learning's situatedness within disciplinary norms and values can enhance institutional assessments, providing a check on the tendency to rely…

This article recounts one undergraduate writing tutor's experience helping a fellow peer navigate an institutional assessment rubric that seemed to contrast the assessment criteria provided by the student's instructor. This article presents a reflection on that experience, framed by Hutchings, Huber, and Ciccone's (2011) work on…

Chapter Five of "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Reconsidered" (2011) suggests that traditional research scholarship methodology can inform and reform the ways in which we value and evaluate teaching. The authors discuss applying research methodology as way to complete this process. This article suggests that using theoretical…

Educators know the reality and the inadequacies of current evaluation systems--there are gaps between what is defined as good teaching, how faculty members are assessed, and how they are rewarded (or not) for their work in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Student evaluations are ineffective tools to assess teachers. Educators must be…