ASPB EDUCATION FORUM

Publishing Your Teaching Scholarship

Communicating the outcomes of our research is integral to our work as scientists. Through conference presentations and journal publications, we discuss our findings and their implications so that others can learn from and build on our efforts. Yet, what we actually do on a day-to-day basis includes not only bench and field research, but also the myriad ways in which we prepare the next generation of scientists, science teachers, and scientifically literate citizens. As instructors and research mentors, we have opportunities to systematically collect and evaluate evidence of our students’ learning. In fact, a recurring theme in science teaching reform in higher education is exactly this: how we can bring a research mind-set to teaching practice. The movement has been called scientific teaching (1), teaching-as-research (2), and scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL; 3, 4). What all of these ideas have in common is the expectation that we will communicate what we learn from studying our teaching or our students’ learning. In other words, we will publish it.

Publishing our teaching scholarship offers a number of benefits beyond meeting the expectations of colleagues, institutions, and the broader community. First, by opening up our work to peer review and critique, we can expand our thinking and use feedback to make improvements in our instruction and teaching scholarship. Second, thanks to Google Scholar, a host of readers both within and beyond our discipline can learn from our work. Finally, promotion and tenure guidelines are continuing to change in ways that allow for documentation and evaluation of our teaching scholarship either alongside or in addition to our disciplinary research (12,6).

As an editorial board member for CBE-Life Sciences Education, which is published by the American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) and features research articles and essays related to K–20+ science education, I have seen many manuscripts from scientist–educators who want to share their educational innovations and classroom-based research. My intention in this forum is to point out a number of resources, including websites, articles, and professional development activities, that I hope will be useful to ASPB members interested in sharing their teaching scholarship with the broader scientific and science teaching communities. I also offer more general advice for those who are ready to study their own teaching or move their teaching scholarship toward publication.

Most authors do a fantastic job of communicating their passion for science teaching and their genuine interest in student learning. Yet, manuscripts often suffer from three issues: (1) insufficient context (i.e., little description of what is already known and how it informed the work being described), (2) disconnection between the problem that the study aims to address and the methods for doing so, and (3) unsupported claims about what is known in the field and what can be concluded from the work. The following are strategies for avoiding these pitfalls and ensuring that manuscripts survive (and even flourish!) through the review process:

Inform your teaching scholarship with relevant literature. What can you learn from other studies that will help you in thinking about yours? What is already known that suggests your work is significant and meaningful? What is the “gap” that your scholarship fills? Publishable manuscripts include a solid review of relevant literature and a description of how the results contribute to the body of knowledge. Unfortunately, there is no PubMed for science education, but Google Scholar, including its “cited by” feature, is quickly and effectively addressing the need for a cross-disciplinary literature search and retrieval system. For more extensive reviews of how to go about locating, deciphering, and evaluating science education research and practice literature, see endnotes 5, 7, and 8.

Ensure that your research question and design are well aligned. Most important, will your study in its current design help you answer your research question? For more on designing and conducting studies of teaching and learning, see endnotes 1, 9, and 10.

Justify your arguments. Are your claims supported with evidence from the literature (i.e., citations) or from your own work (i.e., data)? How do your data indicate that the conclusion you are drawing is warranted? It is easy to make assertions based on your personal experience as a learner or teacher (e.g., “students learn best when student–teacher ratios are small” or “students learn science by doing it”). In the context of a scholarly article, however, these statements can be quite contentious and should be supported by references or data that serve as evidence for your argument.

Once your manuscript is submission-ready, where should you send it? Many lists of SoTL journals have been generated [see, e.g., endnotes 11 and 5, and websites noted in Selected Resources]. A number of scientific societies publish education articles in their journals. For example, ASPB periodically features education essays as commentaries in The Plant Cell. On a related note, The Plant Cell is inaugurating a regular online-only column called “Teaching Tools in Plant Biology.” Teaching Tools will provide instructors who are teaching undergraduate-level classes in plant biology outside their own area of expertise with ready-to-go course outlines and PowerPoints on selected topics. The ways in which you integrate these resources into your curricula and the ways in which working with real data helps (or fails to help!) students learn are prime targets for scholarly study. Some societies (e.g., ASCB) have even started their own journals of science education research and practice. If you choose to publish in a discipline-specific journal, your immediate colleagues are more likely to see (and even read!) your work. On the contrary, publishing in cross-disciplinary journals such as the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning helps ensure that lessons learned in physics instruction can be applied in biology classrooms and vice versa (13). Consider your target audience (e.g., plant biologists, life scientists, anyone who teaches an undergraduate science course for nonmajors) and select a journal accordingly.

An expanding number of organizations are supporting faculty from all disciplines in scholarly work on teaching and learning (e.g., International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning). Scientific societies are also offering professional development and venues for presenting teaching scholarship (see Professional Development section in Selected Resources). For example, you can share your teaching scholarship at the Plant Biology 2009 meeting as an education poster or during the Education Symposium and Education Workshop. Your own campus may offer a wealth of resources, including training in teaching scholarship and discussion groups for like-minded colleagues. The University of Central Florida hosts a SoTL workshop series for faculty, and Western Carolina University presents an annual summer institute on the topic. Similarly, colleges and departments of education are home to colleagues who may be interested in collaborating with you, offering advice on previous studies and established methodologies, and engaging in ongoing discussion about SoTL (11). Take advantage of your colleagues across campus to create synergy regarding SoTL right where you work.

Many professional societies and related stakeholders are actively seeking innovative curricula and novel solutions to meet the challenges of 21st century science teaching and learning. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Institute of Biological Sciences, and Howard Hughes Medical Institute are just a few of the organizations bringing increased attention, creativity, and resources to science learning across the K–20+ continuum. By publishing your SoTL, you will add to the growing body of knowledge these groups can tap into to achieve these important goals.
Please direct any comments or questions on this topic to Erin Dolan.

Erin Dolan

References

1. Handelsman, J., Miller, S., and Pfund, C. 2007. Scientific Teaching. New York: W. H. Freeman.
2. Cochran-Smith, M., and Lytle, S. 1999. The teacher research movement: A decade later. Educational Researcher 28:15–25.
3. Boyer, E. L. 1990. Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
4. Hutchings, P., and Shulman, L. S. 1999. The scholarship of teaching: New elaborations, new developments. Change 31:10–15.
5. Dolan, E. L. 2007. Grappling with the literature of education research and practice. CBE – Life Sciences Education 6:289–296.
6. Jaschik, S. 2007. “Scholarship Reconsidered” as tenure policy. Inside Higher Ed, October 2, 2007.
7. Powell, S. G. 2006. Review of Maryellen Weimer: Enhancing scholarly work on teaching and learning. INFORMS Transactions in Education 6(3):48–54.
8. Weimer, M. 2006. Enhancing Scholarly Work on Teaching and Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
9. Angelo, T. A., and Cross, K. P. 1993. Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
10. Tanner, K., and Allen, D. 2004. Approaches to biology teaching and learning: From assays to assessments—On collecting evidence in science teaching. Cell Biology Education 3:69–74.
11. Allen, D., and Tanner, K. 2005. Approaches to biology teaching and learning: From a scholarly approach to teaching to the scholarship of teaching. Cell Biology Education 4:1–6.
12. Dolan, E. L. 2008. Education Outreach and Public Engagement. New York: Springer.
13. Weimer, M. 2008. Positioning scholarly work on teaching and learning. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning 2:1–6.

Selected Resources*

Recommended Reading

• Allen and Tanner (2005). Includes list of relevant journals.
• Dolan (2007). Includes a list of relevant journals.
• McKinney, K. (2009). Getting SoTL articles published—a few tips. Illinois State University website.
• Weimer, M. (2006). Enhancing Scholarly Work on Teaching and Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Assembled by Illinois State University: http://www.sotl.ilstu.edu/pubOuts/index.shtml; http://my.ilstu.edu/~sknaylor/sotl.htm.

List of SoTL Publications

1. Assembled by the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
2. Assembled by University of Central Florida.
3. Annual Conference of the Inter­national Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
4. Biology Scholars Residencies, sponsored by the American Society for Micro­biology. New cohorts accepted annually.
5. Online SoTL Tutorial from the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Professional Development

1. Teaching Professor Conference.
2. Workshop on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at the Symposium on Student-Centered Education in Molecular Life Sciences, sponsored by the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

*All URLs accessed May 27, 2009.