Notes from the 5/27/04 Faculty Roundtable "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Make the most of your instructional innovations"

Robert Blake (Professor of Spanish and Director, UC Language Consortium) described one of his areas of specialization, second language learning, showing how it overlaps both basic (first language acquisition) and applied (applied linguistics) research areas. He described the development of online teaching modules "Language without Walls" and illustrated the multitude of research questions that arise in the endeavor.

Professor Jessica Utts (Statistics) described the development, use, and outcome of creating a hybrid Introductory Statistics course. As the course has now been offered three times, she has been able to improve upon it. She described how this experience has contributed to a career niche of being an expert on the teaching of statistics.

Both Blake and Utts pointed out that there are journals in their respective fields that are eager to publish scholarly papers on teaching and the outcomes of innovation. This is likely to be the case in many other disciplines and fields of study as well. A faculty member in the audience pointed out that studies of process as well as outcomes could be of value in such scholarship.

Barbara Sommer
Instructional Programs Coordinator
Teaching Resources Center UC Davis