March 29th SoTL Journal Club

The CTSI-SoTL team is excited to continue the monthly Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Journal Club Series through Fall-Winter 2022-23. The goal of this series is to provide an opportunity for our community to explore the SoTL literature in a group setting, both to find practical applications to implement in the classroom and to inform our own SoTL projects.

Articles in this series are selected by instructors within our SoTL community, and these papers are a starting point to explore and examine one research study. Facilitators provide discussion prompts to guide and engage us in conversations that will resonate across all disciplines and SoTL experience levels.

Facilitators:
Tara Black, Assistant Professor, Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work
Alex Rennet, Assistant Professor, Teaching Stream, Mathematical and Computational Sciences, UTM

Article:
Jensen, J., Smith, C. M., Bowers, R., Kaloi, M., Ogden, T. H., Parry, K. A., Payne, J. S., Fife, P. & Holt, E. (2022). Asynchronous Online Instruction Leads to Learning Gaps When Compared to a Flipped Classroom. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 31(6), 718-729. [Library Permalink]

Discussion Prompts:

1. The authors cite various meta-analyses (p719-720) that suggest a “positive trend for online instruction” (versus traditional instruction). But the results of the paper seem to show the opposite. Does this surprise you? How does it line up with your own experience teaching online and in-person?
2. What did you think of how the authors of this study attempted to address confounding variables, such as instructor-as-researcher, and student self-selection into course delivery modalities? Were there any confounding variables that they neither addressed nor controlled for?  Do you worry about these same variables in your own SoTL work? Have you found ways to get around them?
3. The authors raise Social Presence Theory in their discussion (p 726), noting that faculty and peer interactions could be a significant driver of the disparity in student performance they observed.  Are you familiar with SPT? If so, have you applied it in your teaching (esp. of non-in-person modalities, recently or during the pandemic)?  Do you think that SPT plays a crucial role in students' performance in a course delivered in non-traditional modes, or do you think there are other factors at play that are at least as important?

CTSI Staff:
Cora McCloy, PhD, Faculty Liaison Coordinator, SoTL
Kyle Turner, MSc, Faculty Liaison, Teaching and Learning

Please email kyle.turner@utoronto.ca with any questions about this event.

We invite you to enroll in the SoTL Hub on Quercus to access materials from this and other series.