Global Utilities

La Trobe University
Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Centre

SoLT Research Network

Since 2009, the CTLC has coordinated The Scholarship of Learning and Teaching (SoLT) Research Network. The SoLT meetings/seminars (the second Tuesday of each month, 1-2pm in HUED 108) provide staff at La Trobe with an opportunity to work with others to advance and publish their scholarship of learning and teaching projects and inquiries.

The Tuesday sessions have usually been a mix of different discussions:

  • Journal Club: Which Higher Education Journals to target and how to succeed
  • Writing group: Using Brown’s eight key ideas for writing
  • Disseminating scholarly and research papers and ideas
  • Applying for Teaching and Learning Grants and Awards
  • Developing effective teaching portfolios for probation and promotion

The SoLT network also contains a wiki site designed to support and foster collaboration.

In 2011, the Tuesday sessions are divided into two kinds:

  • Ideas sessions are intended to help participants take a view on the issues/challenges involved in developing the scholarship of learning and teaching.
  • Feedback sessions will usually focus on providing feedback to a La Trobe colleague on a conference paper, a piece of writing or a puzzle/pickle in their SoLT research. These sessions are designed to progress a piece of work toward a publishable outcome.

Semester 2, 2011 Program

All sessions are held on the Melbourne campus (Bundoora) in HUED108, 1-2pm. The sessions will also be video-conferenced to the Bendigo campus. See various venues below.

Session 1: Tues 9 August, 1-2pm

Writing in the time of bureaucracy: challenges for the scholarship of learning and teaching (Ideas session)

  • Dr Tai Peseta and Associate Professor Nick Szorenyi-Reischl, CTLC

In this first session, we will discuss the provocations set out in Judith Brett’s piece 'The Bureaucratization of Writing: Why so few academics are public intellectuals' [PDF 258 KB] and what they might mean for writing about curriculum, teaching and learning. In the piece, Brett describes the impact of bureaucracy on academic writing and invites us to re-imagine our identities as writers of research, as well as the audiences we write for. Tai and Nick will lead a conversation about the choices we make as writers of SoLT research.

Please do all you can to read the article before you come along to the session.

Videoconference: Bendigo (EDU 226)

Session 2: Tues 30 August, 1-2pm

Developing capstone experiences for students (Ideas session)

  • Annie Holdsworth, CTLC

The term “capstone” is widely used to describe a course or experience that provides opportunities for a student to apply knowledge gained throughout their undergraduate degree. This involves integrating graduate capabilities and employability skills and occurs usually in their final year of an undergraduate degree

Little has been published about Australian capstone experiences with the Americans leading the way with evaluation and research into capstones. Members of SOLT have an opportunity to consider their approach to teaching and learning in relation to creating and implementing capstones and publishing on this work.

Videoconference: Bendigo (AP102)

Session 3:  Tues 13 September, 1-2pm

Mixed methods research in Higher Education – getting your hands dirty with data (Ideas session)

  • Robyn Yucel, ALL Unit/FSTE and Dr Fiona Bird (Zoology)

Making decisions about suitable methodologies in HE research should ideally involve an initial, well thought out rationale for the types of data to be collected and how they will be analysed. In practice, particularly for novice researchers, a thorough consideration of how to deal with data often comes after the data are collected. This interactive workshop will provide an opportunity for hands on practice in analysing qualitative and quantitative data collected as part of a study of students’ perceptions of the DUAL (Developing Understanding of Assessment for Learning) program, developed by Fiona Bird (Zoology) and Robyn Yucel (Academic Language and Learning). Participants will be given samples of the data and will have an opportunity to discuss ways of putting them together in a meaningful way that addresses the research questions of the study.

Videoconference: Bendigo (AP 102)

Session 4: Tues 27 September, 1-2pm

Is the PhD an appropriate qualification for planners?

  • Julie Rudner, Humanities & Social Sciences (Bendigo)

While current debates about planning education at the undergraduate level are grappling with the mode of delivery, and the relationships between traditional classroom learning and experiential project-based learning, this debate has yet to enter the discourse of higher degrees by research. The format of research degrees have been in flux for the last ten or so years, in Australia and elsewhere. New forms of doctoral education such as PhD by publication, practice based PhD, and professional doctorates are supplementing traditional, or Œbig book¹, model of research degree study in the humanities. This talk explores the features of these new models and what they may have to offer research education in the discipline of planning. Although the material is based within planning, the tensions are similar throughout other fields of study.

Videoconference: Bendigo (AP102)

Session 5: Tues 11 October, 10am-2pm

Workshop: Paradigms, methodology and methods in higher education/scholarship of learning and teaching research: What?

  • Dr Tai Peseta, CTLC and Dr Julie White, Faculty of Education

This practical workshop is intended for colleagues at La Trobe who have dabbled in curriculum, teaching and learning research and want to get a handle on ideas about paradigms, methodology and methods in order to push their project to publication. The focus will be on qualitative research. Please bring along the outline of a research project you’re currently working on, together with some initial ideas about how you’d like progress it.

You must register to participate in this session. Please email Tai at t.peseta@latrobe.edu.au.

Videoconference: Bendigo (BUS133)

Session 6: Tues 25 October, 1-2pm

E-learning systems, practice, and ignoring the history of technology (Ideas session)

  • Dr John Hannon, CTLC

The brief history of e-learning relates two trajectories and discourses of e-learning: efficient access and delivery of content and mass testing of students afforded by systems technologies, and the potential for a participatory learning community through networked technologies. These discourses are themselves expressions of historical debates over technology during the last two centuries. In this presentation, I argue that teaching and learning does not translate from “traditional” to online environments in a straightforward manner, and that the legacy of these debates are embedded in technologies and institutional practices. To what extent is e-learning still captured by this history, and what would e-learning be like if not constrained by these historical antecedents?

Videoconference: Bendigo (AP102)

Session 7: Tues 8 November, 1-2pm

PEER model: Leadership and Communication in Peer Review

  • Dr Judy Lyons, CTLC

In this session I will report on the participatory action research project on Social, Communicative and Interpersonal Leadership in the context of Peer Review. I describe the PELT project and articulate the aims of and a brief overview of the PEER Model, which has intersecting three pillars: leadership, the process of peer review and communication.

Peer review is a well-recognised and well-established routine for research activities in academe; however, ideas and the practice of peer review or peer observation in higher education teaching is confusing and not universally accepted or carried out. The tension of using peer review of teaching as a tool in awards and promotions, and peer review of teaching to enhance and improve teaching and learning outcomes will be discussed.

Videoconference: Bendigo (AP 102)

Session 8: Tues 22 November, 1-2pm

Coming to grips with the higher education scholarly literature: observations and lessons from a Scientist and a Librarian

  • Pam Hurst and Kendra Watson

We are both enrolled in the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education Curriculum, Teaching and Learning and have been learning about the importance of coming to grips with the higher education research literature. This semester, we have taken an issue from our teaching practice (Pam – student learning in labs; Kendra – the role of librarians in teaching information literacy) and undertaken a significant literature review as the first stage for developing a research project of our own. In this session, we talk about the challenges involved in reading higher education research, navigating the higher education research literature and share what we have learned through doing so.

Session 9: Tues 13 December, 1-2pm

TBC

Past Programs and resources

To learn more about SoLT at La Trobe, to participate in a session or to join the email list, contact;

Dr Tai Peseta

Academic and Curriculum Developer

CTLC

Humanities 2, room 107