My interest is focused on students’ attitudes and perception and how they influence or impact learning. Many things affect the perceptions and attitudes of students that have nothing to do with content in a class. But the emotions associated with the perceptions and attitudes can determine whether or not the student is open to not only learn the content but have the content deeply affect them emotionally so that the experience of learning can help them retain and use the knowledge long after the class is over.

I believe the teacher and the organization has a great influence on the students’ attitude. Much research has been done showing that human perception or attitude directly mimics human behavior. In a brown bag session I facilitated, I invited students to be a panel to talk with instructors on how they influence student’s emotions, attitudes, behavior and learning. The students were all non-traditional with lots of life experience, so they haven’t been sitting in a classroom for the last 16 years. I asked them to think back in their years as students about the worst teacher they ever had. No one had a problem thinking of one, and several folks had many. We brainstormed the qualities of that teacher and created a list. I then asked them to think about the best teacher they ever had and we created a list of qualities. I then simply asked, "How did you behave in either situation?" The worst teach scenario, the students said, "I didn’t go to class. I did just enough to get by. I acted out in class. I didn’t care what the content was. I caused fights. I was defiant." The best teacher scenario, the students said " I spent more time on the class than any other class. I wanted to go to the class. I couldn’t wait until that class. I put my heart and soul into the work did for the class." The teacher, how they teach, and the expectations they have for the students affect student learning.

So how can I be a better teacher so that students have great opportunities for learning that will stay with them for a lifetime, not just a semester? How will I know if their perceptions and attitudes of life or subject matter change because of something I did in class or something they experienced in class?

The class that I am using for my research is Organizational Development. Graduate level with students from many different masters programs. It has 21 students, most have prior work experience. The class is held once a week for three hours.

I began last semester to use a Critical incident questionnaire (Brookfield) at the end of each class as an evaluation tool for me to gather evidence of learning that occurred that day and critical incidents that happened during the class that may give me a clue to the how, why and emotion associated with the learning event. The instrument gave me an extreme amount of qualitative data, and truly helped me to look everyday at how I could have done some things better in the facilitation of their learning, told me they were learning, and also told me when conflict was developing. It was a great tool to keep on top of what was happening. But it wasn’t measuring what I wanted it to. This has been my struggle since the beginning of this project. How do you measure emotion, attitude and affective domain?

I have developed my own questionnaire now that I am going to administer every class period before it starts and after it is over. It is designed to find out what attitude the students come into class with, why, and what emotions are associated with the attitude. I want to better understand how what is happening in life can affect the attitude of learning. I then ask them what is their attitude about being in class today, why and what emotions are included in their attitude. I want to find out the students expectations and readiness to actually come to learn the content. The first day I included a question to define the content area as best as they could. This is will be used as a base line that will be used to demonstrate their knowledge and deeper understanding that happens through the class, as it will also be used the last day of class.

15 minutes before class is done, I give them another questionnaire that asks them what their attitude is as they leave class today, why and any emotions associated with it to see if possibly the experience of class helped them change their attitude about life in general. Another question asks them about their attitude toward the class, to see what attitude or emotions class actually caused them. I also ask them if anything got them excited or frustrated, what was the incident and why did it cause them those feeling. I ask them if they had any key learnings from class, and why are they key to them. I want to find out if the key learning they had is somehow related to personal experience, real life situation, the method in which it was taught, or something else.

I hope that through the analysis of the data, I will find some emerging themes about students’ attitude and learning.

I have asked my students to help me in evaluating the questionnaire and its usefulness to gather my data. I am sure I will revise again.

• The following are activities that I participated in this past semester that I believe demonstrate that I have helped to create a community of practice about learning and teaching at UW stout.

• Facilitated a brown bag lunch session about students’ perception of learning and how it affects behavior.

• Facilitated a workshop during UW Stout Professional development day on teaching strategies for effective student engagement in learning.

• Member of a panel discussion on using Web enhanced instruction and its affect on student learning.
• Advisory board member of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

• Meet regularly with a small team of teaching staff that is participating in SOTL.

• Created an interdisciplinary team of educators that meet once a month informally to talk about ideas for better instruction to enhance student learning.

• Assist fifteen K-12 teachers in doing action research in their own classroom to investigate their own questions about teaching and learning.