How the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning can advance undergraduate research

<p> Presentation given at Council on Undergraduate Research Biennial Conference, Tampa, FL.</p><p> <a href="https://www.cur.org/assets/1/7/CUR_Biennial_Program_2016_web_final2.PDF" target="_self"> Program </a></p><p> This international panel will discuss synergistic connections between the Scholarship of Teaching &amp; Learning [SoTL] and undergraduate research [UR]. SoTL &ldquo;involves systematic study of teaching and/or learning and the public sharing and review of such work through Presentation, performance, or publications&rdquo; (McKinney, 2006, p. 39). UR is a high impact experience for promoting student learning gains (Kuh, 2008; Lopatto, 2010), and SoTL offers tools, techniques, approaches, and perspectives that help to assess, document, and further enhance student learning from UR experiences. Faculty from Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. and one undergraduate student, representing the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities, will discuss how SoTL informs and advances UR. After a brief introduction to SoTL, panelists will share their experiences with UR and SoTL at different levels in the classroom and other educational settings. Topics will include the disconnect between UR-driven focus on process and assessment-driven focus on products, how to use a SoTL framework to assess student learning from UR, the political issues involved in evaluating UR through a SoTL lens, and the limits of assessing UR only in classroom contexts. This panel will also discuss ways SoTL can enhance UR outside of the classroom, including peer review, collaborative projects and shared authorship issues, different UR pathways, and resources. The discussants will frame these topics in the larger global context of informal international collaboration among scholars interested in UR and highlight how such international collaborations&mdash;particularly with a SoTL focus&mdash;both inform and advance UR.</p>