Chemical Education Today
On-Line Conference Faculty Rewards: Can We Implement the Scholarship of Teaching? A Summary of an Electronic Conference1 by Arlene A. Russell and Michael J. Pavelich In 1990, Ernest Boyer published a seminal work “Scholarship Reconsidered—Priorities of the Professoriate.”2 The book was based on a national survey of 10,000 faculty in higher education conducted for the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Boyer found that there was a large dissatisfaction among all levels of faculty on the reward system for tenure and promotion. Specifically he found that for faculty in fouryear institutions, • 60% strongly agreed publishing was necessary to receive tenure and 28% said receiving research grants was very important to receiving tenure but only 9% said their interests lie primarily in research and 26% said their interests lie primarily in teaching; • 20% said pressure to publish reduces the quality of their teaching but 25% said teaching evaluations were very important for tenure, 13% said peer observation was very important, 9% said recommendations from current and former students were very important, and 5% said syllabi for courses were very important; • 20% said teaching effectiveness should be the primary criterion for promotion and 41% said better ways besides publications were needed to evaluate scholarship. Boyer identified four areas of scholarship that he felt were the “proper work of the faculty”. He labeled these as the scholarships of discovery (research), teaching, application, and integration. He recommended that faculty be allowed to evolve through these four areas during their careers and not have to emphasize all or just one (specifically research) all the time. The book has prompted a great deal of thought, reflection, and work on many campuses. Recognizing, evaluating, and defining teaching and the scholarship of teaching has occupied the majority of the time of these committees. They have used as their starting points Boyer’s suggestions on how to evaluate teaching, which he describes as “a mare’s nest of controversy”. Boyer suggested three components: self assessment, peer assessment, and student assessment. He also endorsed portfolios, which would allow for multiple sources of evidence and demonstration of innovation and improvement in teaching. Documentation that Boyer felt could be included in a self-evaluation included a statement about courses taught, a discussion of class goals, procedures and course outlines, descriptions of teaching materials and assignments, copies of examinations or other evaluation tasks, and a discussion of teaching successes and failures and ways to improve. For peer evaluation, which he claimed is accepted in theory but neglected in practice, Boyer called on the faculty to establish criteria for good teaching, to observe
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colleagues and discuss teaching procedures, to have peers evaluate a candidate’s essay on his or her teaching philosophy, and to consider the significance of articles in peerreviewed journals that focus on teaching. Boyer identified four Boyer was reluctant areas of scholarship that to abandon student evaluations but was he felt were the “proper aware of the biases and misuse that can occur work of the faculty,” with them. He believed discovery (research), that if they are to be effective and useful, then teaching, application, there must be both well and integration. designed procedures for their use and well prepared students. He suggested that issues and training on faculty assessment procedures might be included in freshman orientation programs. Long-term effects of teaching effectiveness should also include comments from former students In order to capture the discussions and grassroots efforts that followed the publication of “Scholarship Reconsidered,” in October 1995, the ACS Division of Chemical Education and the Educational Research and Methods Division of the American Society of Engineering Education cosponsored an electronic conference, “Can We Implement the Scholarship of Teaching?” Four position papers by respected chemistry and engineering educators were solicited and posted prior to the conference in order to stimulate and focus discussion. Electronic copies of these papers can be obtained by contacting either of the authors of this paper. Briefly, the paper “Who Should Teach in College?”3 by Richard M. Felder, Hoechst Celanese Professor of Chemical Engineering, North Carolina State University, advocated a system with two Felder advocated a equivalent faculty pathways: system with two education and research. The faculty emphasizing educa- equivalent faculty tion (not just teaching, but pathways: education such things as educational research, development of inno- and research. vative instructional methods and materials, faculty development, etc.) would be required to have applied (industrial) experience and would carry heavier course loads than research-pathway faculty. These education-emphasis positions would be carefully planned as part of the department structure and the faculty would make an a priori decision on the percentage that would be in each pathway based on research resources, teaching needs, and faculty interests and expertise. In the discussion that evolved from this paper, there was an underlying sentiment for maintaining but deemphasizing the disciplinary research role in many in-
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stitutions rather than forming two separate tracks and excluding strong teachers from the opportunity to participate in disciplinary research. Few, if any, of the discussants were aware of the research literature on which Felder had based his paper. One participant asked the question, “If there is not time to do exemplary teaching and research, how can you do exemplary teaching when Feisel presented a you have an augmented teaching load?” No one anmodel for effecting swered that. Also left change by the undiscussed was the issue of “judicious application the role of research in science or engineering educaof rewards”. tion and the other obligations Felder proposed for the education-emphasis faculty. There were some attempts to define “teaching” but most of this discussion was left to the fourth paper. In the second paper, “Scholarship Reconsidered— A Reality Check”, Lyle D. Feisel, Dean, The Watson School of Engineering, SUNY Binghamton, presented a model for effecting change by the “judicious application of rewards”. To do this, Feisel recognized that institutions will need to develop a rigorous evaluation system with standards and hold all faculty accountable to it. Some faculty will not “pass”! Institutions will have to define, or redefine, their missions to value teaching and develop and encourage means for faculty to improve. These institutions must reward good teaching with raises, promotion, and tenure. For this to work, individuals must see the rewards as positive, not punitive, and must know that the new requirements are permanent and worthwhile. Otherwise there will be no incentive to change what is presently done. The discussion of this paper focused on the need to develop an evaluation of teaching and on the issues of peer evaluation. It became quite apparent to the chairs of this meeting that most faculty are unaware of both the national and international work that has been done on de- Doyle veloping these criteria. One participant, defended however, did. His statement was blunt and to the point. “Don’t reinvent the research as wheel. Such things already exist! The teaching. best one I have found is ‘Improving a College/University Teaching Evaluation System. A Comprehensive Developmental Curriculum for Faculty and Administrators’, Laura Richlin and Brenda Manning. The materials can be obtained by contacting
[email protected].”4 The third paper, “Scholarship Reconsidered—Inherent Dangers in its Applications” provided a counterpoint. Michael P. Doyle, D.R. Stemmes Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, Department of Chemistry, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, defended research as teaching. He reminded the conference that the popular opinion of research presumes disciplinary-based graduate-level work. A problem of emphasis in a few Ph.D.-granting schools is being transferred to all research endeavors in all schools. Doyle focused on the important role of research in undergraduate teaching and education and the
need to remove the dichotomy between teaching and research. He implores faculty to work together to dispel the media myth that all faculty are negligent and irresponsible in their teaching duties. The discussion rallied around Doyle’s advocacy for undergraduate research. There were many supporters for this enterprise and some very positive suggestions for bringing this part of research to the attention of the media. It was suggested that Legg and Freilich C&EN include in their statis- used their paper to tics of chemist production, a relative factor that would rec- describe a campusognize the contributions of re- wide-reevaluation of search at predominantly undergraduate institutions. The faculty rewards. statistic, B.S. chemists/1000 undergraduates, would rank institutions very differently from the current ratings. A cautionary note was sounded that brought the mission of teaching back to the foreground. One participant suggested we not forget that the majority of students who take chemistry classes do no partake of this valuable undergraduate experience. The need for quality teaching in the large service classes remains. The final position paper demonstrated how theory can be put into practice. J. Ivan Legg, Provost, and Mark Freilich, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, University of Memphis, used their paper, “Integration of the Scholarship of Teaching Into Faculty Roles and Rewards: Implementing a Task Force Recommendation” to describe a campus-wide-reevaluation of faculty rewards. A multiyear process involving many faculty carefully defined and implemented a plan to broaden the reward system at the University of Memphis. The reward system requires all faculty to be evaluated on their teaching and explicitly distinguishes between Teaching and the Scholarship of Teaching. Their clarification bears quoting: “Teaching encompasses classroom instruction, course development, mentoring students in academic projects including dissertations, testing, grading, and the professional development of the faculty member as a teacher.” “The scholarship of teaching focuses on transforming and extending the knowledge of pedagogy. Examples would include writing an appropriate textbook or educational article in one’s discipline. Innovative contributions to teaching, insofar as they are published or presented in a peer-reviewed forum, would also constitute scholarship of teaching.” “The scholarship of teaching is not equivalent to teaching. Classroom teaching and staying current in one’s field are not relevant criteria for evaluating faculty on the ‘scholarship of teaching’.” Explicit guidelines consistent with Boyer’s suggestions are incorporated in the University of Memphis evaluation of teaching. Again quoting, “Evaluation of teaching should be formative (to improve teaching skills) as well as summative
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Chemical Education Today
On-Line Conference
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(to judge teaching skills). Opportunities for faculty enrichment should be made available.”
Visit JCE Online:
“Multiple sources of evidence of teaching performance should be employed.”
where you will find an ever-growing resource that encompasses all of the Journal’s facets—print, software, online, and books.
“Mentoring students at all levels is an important aspect of teaching activities and should be taken into account in faculty evaluations.”
Print
“Creative and effective use of innovative teaching methods and curricular innovations should be encouraged and constructively evaluated.”
• Abstracts of all articles from July 1995 • full text of Editorials, In This Issue (issue overview), NSF Highlights, the Forum of the Task Force on General Chemistry from July 1995 • Subscription Form to the Journal • A Guide to Submissions, revised 8/96, if you are preparing a paper for submission • Especially for High School Teachers, the new feature that gives an overview of articles of interest to H.S. teachers • full text of one Major Article from each issue • the entire text of the new Chemical Education Today section, beginning September 1996 • Online search of author index
JCE Software publishes more than 80 computer programs for Macintosh, Windows, and PC compatibles; 6 videodiscs; 4 CD ROMs; a videotape on HIV-1 Protease, … We have regular monthly releases. Get up-to-date information online, the fastest way to get the complete information that is also in our (paper) Available Issues document and abstracts. • Available Issues, with descriptions of every piece of software and lots of graphics to give you a flavor of the program • Output Queue—what is scheduled to be published • Demos and Updates: this is the first place to look for a fix if you are having problems with one of our programs • A Guide to Submissions that tells you how to go about publishing your own educational software so that others can use it
JCE Internet is where the Internet is the primary form of publication: • Publications, especially those that are dynamic and cannot be represented on paper • Resources: Chemical Education Resource Shelf (see p. A237 of October 1996) with lists of textbooks, publishers, etc.; Hal’s Picks; lists of journals of interest to chemical education; software suppliers. • Reviews, of internet sites of interest to those in chemical education
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Conference participants found little to disagree with in this paper. Its importance to the conference, however, became apparent in the evaluation. Several participants commented that the illumination of teaching as a larger process than lecturing was what they liked most about the conference. Electronic conferences are relatively new, and need to be evaluated carefully to improve them and exploit the medium to its fullest. We would be remiss to say there were not problems. Initially, someone “crashed” the conference and attempted to use the conference participant list for a personal forum. Although annoying, this caused little disruption to the conference as the problem was rectified by the manager, Tom O’Haver very quickly. A more serious problem occurred within the context of the discussions. Global replies often caused excessively long messages repeating what everyone had read before. The chairs were not able to get participants to briefly cite the paper or comments they were debating. Finally, some individuals felt compelled to comment on everything and to everyone. Our polite attempts to curtail their comments went unheeded. This dominating behavior by a few proved to be the most common complaint about the conference. On the positive side, we can ask if the conference was a success. Based on initial interest in the topic we must conclude “yes”. More than 800 people from 50 countries signed up for the two-week conference. Most of the participants “observed” if they indeed did follow the discussion. We tend to think they might have, since the majority of the conference evaluations were received from people who had not contributed to the 400 comments that were posted. Easily quantified measures from the evaluations that were returned are summarized in Table 1. Free-form responses to the question “What did you like most about conference?” also give insight on the value of electronic conferences. Frequently articulated ideas included: • intelligent and reasoned discourse on a very hot topic • ability to express opinions and get responses • topic and papers • able to participate at any time • others have common interests “Those of us who chose to “lurk” this time learned a great deal, just as we do when we are simply in the audience at a meeting.” “The registration fee was unsurpassed. Parking was no problem. I could tune in at my convenience (3 a.m.).
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Table 1. Participant Evaluation Question
Answer (Low 1—10 High)
Overall conference rating
7
Appropriate topic for email conference
8
Interest in four papers Value in bringing engineering and chemical education together Scheduling time (October) Sign up for another email conference
7–8 7 7 "yes"
The topic elicited wide response because it is becoming a hotter topic by the minute.” “It was cheap, convenient, accessible, and brought together people who probably otherwise couldn’t have gotSeveral participants ten together.” Finally, we believe that commented that the the increased accessibility of illumination of electronic conferences provides a strong motivation to teaching as a larger continue to hold and improve process than their structure. The management problems we had are lecturing was what not insurmountable. Judi- they liked most about ciously chosen topics with a wide appeal or which are the conference. very controversial are particularly well suited to this medium. This format can provide voices that chemical educators should but would not otherwise hear, and include many participants who would not or could not otherwise share in the dialogues and discussions that we must hold to advance chemical education. Notes 1. We are indebted to Tom O’Haver, Department of Chemistry, University of Maryland, who set up the initial structure for the conference and maintained and controlled the electronic postings throughout the conference. Without his participation, this conference would not have been held. 2. Published by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 5 Ivy Lane, Princeton, New Jersey 08540. 3. Adapted from, “The Myth of the Superhuman Professor” ( Journal of Engineering Education 1994, 83 (2), 105–110). Copies can be downloaded from Felder’s home page: http://www2.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/RMF.html. 4. Another excellent source is “Teaching Portfolios: Guidelines for Academic Staff”, GIHE, Griffith University, Queensland, 4111 Australia.
Arlene Russell is in the Department of Chemistry, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095;
[email protected]. Michael J. Pavelich is in the Department of Chemistry, Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO 80401;
[email protected].
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