The recent Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Showcase featured 10 faculty research projects funded by the University’s SoTL grants program.
According to organizers, SoTL is a scholarly inquiry into student learning that advances the practice of teaching by making research findings public. It is a growing movement in post-secondary education that is supported by the UNC Charlotte Center for Teaching and Learning. The Academic Affairs Office promotes the initiative through the SoTL grants program.
This year’s SoTL Showcase featured these projects:
- “Developing Online Content for Foundation Design Instruction” from Michael Swisher, Jeff Balmer and Nicholas Senske in the College of Arts + Architecture
- “Investigating the Readability of Geoscience Reading Materials Assigned to Undergraduate Earth Science and Geology Students” by Scott Hippensteel, geography and earth sciences
- “Understanding Student Perspectives on the Course Evaluation Process” by Loril Gossett, communication studies
- “Collaboration for Quality: A Partnership to Assess Information Literacy Instruction for Freshman Engineering” from Alison Bradley, Dan Latta, Meg Harkins from Atkins Library and the Lee College of Engineering
- “Othermothering: A Culturally Responsive Model of Doctoral Mentoring” by Lisa Merriweather, educational leadership
- “The German Cello School: An Anthology and Recording of Student Pieces” from Mira Frisch, music
- “A Project-based Integrated Work/Review Cycle (PBIWR) for Design and Learning of Accelerated Construction Monitoring” from Don Chen and Shen-En Chen, engineering technology and construction management and civil and environmental engineering
- “Improving Geographic Knowledge Discovery and Spatial Reasoning with Mobile and Web-based Geographical Information Systems” by Eric Delmelle, Wenwu Tang and Laurie Garo, geography and earth sciences
- “Developing an Open Educational Resource for Secure Software Development” by Heather Richter Lipford, software and information systems
- “Teaching the Theory of Island Biogeography as an On-campus Field Laboratory” from William Garcia and Sara Gagne, geography and earth sciences
Since its inception in 2009, the SoTL grants program has funded 32 faculty research projects across many disciplines and colleges. Academic affairs officials noted the grants program has been successful, as measured by the production of SoTL publications and professional presentations; the 24 projects funded during the first three years have yielded 24 publications and 30 presentations at external professional conferences.
The next request for proposals for the SoTL grants program will be in September. Visit the CTL website for more information or email Kim Buch, faculty fellow in the CTL, at kkbuch@uncc.edu.