The International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning an open access, peer-reviewed, international academic journal focusing on improving college teaching & learning. It includes articles, essays and discussion about the scholarship of teaching and learning and its applications in higher education. The current issue of International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (IJ-SoTL) is now available online.

To receive an email notification when new issues of IJ-SoTL are published, go to http://www.georgiasouthern.edu/ijsotl/email_notification.htm. Currently, 1,934 people from 63 countries have requested to be notified of new issues.

The submission deadline for the January 2008 issue of IJ-SoTL is November 15, 2007.

Share This

The outreach showcase describes a wide variety of projects   that use Google Earth to bring geographic context to their stories. The resulting visualizations may complement course content or spur ideas for your own projects. Examples of projects:

• Visualization of South American trade - each country is mapped to show exports to all other countries with lines, and the dollar amount is mapped the size of the circles at the end of the line.

• 
• The life and work of Henri Rousseau, the French artist.

• A guide to global environmental issues, created by Popular Science.

• A Malaria Atlas Project with over 20 years of data.

Share This

The KnowledgeWorks Foundation has created the highly interactive Map of Future Forces Affecting Education. The map consists of several conceptual blocks that highlight different potential ‘forces’ including various trends and social dilemmas such as long-tail economics, smart networks, mobile devices, media-saavy youth, participatory governance and more. The map also invites participation from users including links to discussions for each ‘force’ as well as the ability to tag items with new keywords.

Share This

A special program called Arctic Transect 2004 allowed students in remote classrooms to follow the progress of an arctic expedition in real time while they consulted with expedition members via satellite video feeds, had online chats with academic experts and used customized course materials. The project summary lists benefits of this technology-enhanced teaching strategy as:

• increased motivation and deeper engagement with learning through use of multiple types of media

• online dialogue and collaboration with content experts

• inquiry-based learning with authentic real-time content

The full article, Adventure Learning: Situating Learning in an Authentic Context, by Aaron Doering is available on line in the August/September 2007 issue of Innovate, an open access, refereed, e-journal, focusing on using information technology tools to enhance education published as a public service by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University.

Although this article focuses on K-12 education, it seems that many of the strategies might be adapted to university education. What do you think?

Share This

SPARC, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, invites faculty to help students showcase their views on the value of openly sharing information. Make a two-minute video, post it on the Internet with a Creative Commons license and enter the contest to win $1,000. The Internet gives us ways to discover, collaborate and create in unprecedented ways, the SPARC invitation states, and the free exchange of information is a tool for addressing world problems. Applications for the contest are due Dec. 2, 2007.

SPARC is an alliance supported and funded by hundreds of academic libraries and research institutions.

Share This

Clickers, cell phones and computers come together to turn a large lecture class into a lively discussion in a Physics course taught by Eric Mazur, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics at Harvard University. Mazur explains how the educational effectiveness of clickers (also known as Personal Response Systems) depends on how he structures the class as well as how he uses the technology in this article in the Harvard Gazette. Asking the right kinds of questions and getting students to explain their thinking are key factors in improving understanding of concepts. You can observe Mazur in action and hear students’ reactions in a video taken during one of his classes.

Share This

Robert J. Beichner, a professor of physics and director of the STEM Education Initiative at North Carolina State University, discusses ways to improve the teaching of science and engineering to undergraduates in the Chronicle of Higher Education’s online Colloquy on August 1, 2007 at 1 p.m., U.S. Eastern time. [The session is archived if you miss the live version.] Introductory science courses have long relied largely on lectures and tests that reward memorization. But studies have shown that students learn more, and are more excited by, new methods that emphasize continual interaction with professors and teamwork to solve problems. Even so, not all instructors embrace those new strategies. How can professors be encouraged to try new methods? What are the drawbacks of or limitations to those methods? Hear what Beichner has to say and view the comments from others participating in the Beyond Facts and Formula session. See also the Chronicle’s related article The Tough Road to Better Science Teaching.

Share This