Our readings/discussions with entire SOTL group have inspired me to begin keeping a journal on teaching and learning, including not just notes on the evolution of my proposed SOTL project, but also fairly regular reflections on what’s going on in (and outside of) my classroom. In particular, one of our readings prompted me to begin recording my problems and questions and ideas in order to think about them in the context of opportunities for research.

My one small-group meeting with Clark Leeson centered largely on the idea of building learning communities on line. His enthusiasm (and a book that he lent me on the topic) prompted me to get involved in a new math department project to develop a combination face-to-face/on-line approach to a math skills preparatory course (MATH 110) now being taught in the traditional lecture format. This meeting also resulted in a commitment by both Clark and myself to actually write up the results of the informal pilot projects each of us did last year that formed the basis of our SOTL grant proposals for 2003-2004.

Regarding my proposed project for the SOTL grant, our full-group readings and discussions have helped me refine my initial proposal. After just our first discussion, I realized that my proposal was too focused on teaching method and needed to be reoriented towards impact on student learning. I also realized that the learning focus that my proposal did initially have was pretty narrowly trained on students’ ability to apply specific content, and that I should explicitly consider more general learning outcomes. My conversations with Clark helped greatly here, too -- reflecting on my pilot project helped me identify just exactly what it was about my plan to have students create rather than just solve problems that I believed would enhance their learning. These ideas have helped me design two specific assignments for my target class, and to begin to develop a plan for assessing their impact on learning.

Participation in this project by my department colleague Joy Becker and myself has already begun to spread to others in the math department. We have had several informal conversations with colleagues, especially other newcomers to Stout, generating interest  in forming some kind of a reading/discussion group on teaching and learning issues in math, statistics and computer science. Joy and I have also made plans to make a presentation of our work to date to a regular department meeting in late February. (I’ll get back to you next week with more on this). Joy and I also both participate in a small-group faculty research seminar within the department. This seminar has in the past focused exclusively on disciplinary research topics, but the two of us plan to propose that the group’s March/April segment center on teaching/learning scholarship.