A Teaching Conference of One's Own: Inviting Faculty Into the Scholarly Work of Teaching

A Teaching Conference of One’s Own:

Inviting Faculty Into the Scholarly Work of Teaching

Educational developers have long sought to help college

faculty take seriously questions of teaching and learning. We

know what many college teachers do not: that research on

postsecondary teaching and learning is a professional activity in

its own right, that the classroom itself can be a site of

inquiry, and that the tools of scholarship can be applied to our

teaching. Basing our teaching practices on the scholarship of

teaching and learning (SoTL) enables us to move beyond trial and

error approaches in our teaching. But at a more fundamental

level, it also enables academics to take seriously— – according

to the values of the academy itself— -- the work of teaching. By

basing our teaching practices on evidence that has been

systematically gathered and analyzed in response to carefully

considered questions, we employ our own scholarly training in

service of our teaching (Boyer, 1990; Savory, Burnett, &

Goodburn, 2007; Huber & Hutchings, 2005).

It can be a challenge, however, to involve faculty in

scholarly approaches to teaching. Institutions can throw up

barriers to participation in SoTL (Laird & Ribera, 2011). SoTL’s

uncertain status as “research” is only one obstacle (Boyer, 1990;

McKinney, 2007). At many colleges, heavy teaching and service

loads and low research expectations discourage faculty from

pursuing classroom research or even exploring the existing

scholarship related to their teaching questions. Those who do

SoTL projects tend to be a small percentage of the total faculty

at any institution. And at many smaller colleges, the teaching

and learning center may be staffed by a single person (often with

only a part-time release from regular teaching duties) who has

many competing priorities vying for her time, with SoTL ranked

low on the list (Huber, 2004; Peters, Schodt, & Walczak, 2008;

Mooney & Reder, 2008; Lee, 2010).

Perhaps a more fundamental problem is that faculty members

are often unfamiliar with scholarly approaches to teaching: the

wide variety of questions pursued, the range of research methods

employed, the conferences, publications, and voices that have had

a major impact on the field, the various forms that knowledge can

take, and the many ways that college faculty from a wide variety

of disciplines can, and do, contribute to the field.

Are there other ways to involve faculty in scholarly

approaches to teaching? In The Advancement of Learning (2005), Mary

Taylor Huber and Pat Hutchings argue for a “big tent”

understanding of the scholarship of teaching and learning, one

which does not narrowly define these activities but instead

recognizes a wide variety of ways that we can “ask and answer

questions about students’ learning in ways that can improve one’s

own classroom and also advance the larger profession of teaching”

(Huber & Hutchings, 2005, p. 1). When college faculty associate

the scholarship of teaching and learning with “elaborate research

designs and formal execution,” many write themselves out of the

narrative, leaving little room for their own activities. But

“quite modest efforts to document and reflect on one’s teaching

and share what one has learned” can also be forms of scholarly

teaching (Huber & Hutchings, 2005, p. 4).

For Huber and Hutchings, a key strategy is to create campus

“forums and communities of exchange and study among faculty

across departments” (p. 79)— – to move, as Eugene Rice put it,

from “my work” to “our work,” to escape the “pedagogical

solitude” of an instructor’s individual classroom by moving into

common spaces where faculty from across disciplines can connect

and reflect on teaching and learning questions (Huber &

Hutchings, 2005, pp. 78-79). They cite informal structures—

teaching circles, book groups, study groups—as well as enduring

structures, such as teaching centers and SoTL centers.

At our small, teaching-oriented institution, the Center for

Teaching Excellence has expanded the tent by developing a local

conference on teaching organized by and for our own faculty.

Rather than positioning the teaching center as an “emergency room

for faculty in pedagogic arrest” (Shulman, 2004c, p. 213), the

conference reveals how the work of teaching is focused on inquiry

and dialogue about teaching and learning. And better yet, it

enables a broad swath of our faculty to participate in scholarly

activities related to teaching—activities with enough weight to

count in their annual review process as professional development

or scholarship.

Each year for the past five years, the Center for Teaching

Excellence has organized a one-day, on-campus conference on

teaching. It takes place immediately before the fall semester

begins.  The conference is planned by the CTE director in

coordination with a committee of the university’s faculty.

Sessions are proposed by members of the faculty, proposals are

peer-reviewed by a panel of faculty reviewers, and the event is

widely attended by both adjunct and full-time faculty as well as

administrators and staff. The conference begins with a plenary

session and proceeds with interactive sessions, roundtable

sessions, a poster session, and a resource fair.

In this essay, I describe the rationale for creating an in-

house, on-campus teaching conference; the process by which we

transformed our existing faculty development day into a peer-

reviewed conference; and the product—the conference, and how it

continues to evolve. Finally, I explore the value that such a

change has had for faculty who participate in various aspects of

the conference― – the planning committee, the presenters, and the

attendees. Throughout, I emphasize principles and practices that

should be transferable to a wide range of institutions.

Solving a Common Problem

For many years, our university has fully dedicated at least

one day each academic year to faculty development activities and

workshops. Usually, the day is scheduled during the week before

the fall semester begins. Until recently, the topics included in

the faculty development day were chosen by the teaching center

director, sometimes in consultation with the provost. Activities

generally ran from morning to mid-afternoon and included lunch.

These practices are similar to those at many other universities

that have a faculty development day (Ellis & Ortquest-Ahrens,

2010).

As the CTE CTL director, two concerns prompted my initial

plan to change the event. First and most importantly, I wanted

more grassroots participation in the work of the teaching center.

As a small-college teaching center, our CTE CTL is staffed by a

single individual: a full-time director who plans the center’s

programming, (although faculty co-leaders are involved in many

programs and feedback is regularly collected from faculty and

administrators). In collaboration with faculty supporters, I

asked: what would our programs look like if more events were

initiated by a wider range of faculty members? What untapped

potential might emerge if those who presented on teaching topics

at their disciplinary conferences shared their work with their

colleagues? How could we make visible the teaching expertise that

already exists in the faculty? Although I enjoyed the

flexibility of being able to design most of the center’s

programs, the center needed a way to allow for more grassroots

participation from the faculty.

As I struggled with these questions, I was also failing to

ignite much SoTL activity on campus. Although the CTEour CTL had

initiated a SoTL seminar with a significant number of interested

faculty (usually about 15-18 attended our meetings), few

participants actually began or completed SoTL projects. This

lack of activity was not so surprising at an institution with a

4/4 teaching load, a strong emphasis on the liberal arts with

high expectations for student-centered teaching, and high service

expectations. Faculty members were interested in the idea of

taking a scholarly approach to teaching, but few had found time

to conduct their own scholarly projects.

As a result, I wondered whether participation in a

professional, peer-reviewed conference—but a local, on-campus one

—might provide a more inviting entry point into scholarly

approaches to teaching.

Creating the Conference

Recruiting a conference planning committee

To address these concerns, I began to experiment with our

faculty development day in 2009. I drafted a call for committee

members to serve on a planning committee. To nominate

themselves, they completed a basic information form indicating

their areas of teaching expertise and their experience with

teaching presentations or conferences. The form clearly indicated

that lack of prior experience would not disqualify an individual

from serving on the committee. I also opened committee

membership eligibility to any member of the teaching faculty,

including adjunct faculty members.

In that first year, the planning committee’s work was

limited to reviewing proposals. In subsequent years, the

committee was involved in most stages of the conference’s

planning and execution. Beginning in year two, they met with me

to redesign the call for proposals. Later they reviewed

proposals, suggested topics for the plenary session, served as

moderators and timekeepers at conference sessions, and reconvened

after the conference to review it and suggest changes for the

future.

Many committee members have never attended another teaching

conference and some have never even attended a panel on pedagogy

at their own disciplinary conferences. For most, designing the

call for proposals, reviewing proposals, and evaluating a

conference on teaching engaged them in entirely new professional

activities. These activities required them to think about the

breadth of topics that would be useful in a conference focused on

teaching. They needed to think about how to determine the quality

of proposals—and how much quality control they wanted to

exercise. When discussing the relative merits of various

proposals, they needed to consider the significance of the

problem or question addressed by the proposal, the quality of the

evidence on which the project was based, and the relevance of the

proposal topic to the concerns of other college teachers and to

the campus teaching culture and institutional issues. In short,

serving on the planning committee for a teaching conference was

itself an exercise in scholarly approaches to teaching, one that

few would otherwise have the opportunity—or have taken the

initiative—to do.

Designing the call for proposals

Over the years, the call for proposals (CFP) for the

conference has undergone substantial changes. Experience has

taught us that the CFP has to be carefully crafted if it is to

attract instructors who have never before participated in a

teaching conference or even a pedagogy-oriented panel at a

disciplinary conference.

One of the key challenges to inviting faculty into a

teaching conference is helping them to understand what types of

presentations are appropriate for such a conference. In the

first year, we requested proposals that fit six themes, because

we anticipated that faculty would need direction about topics.

While this impulse was correct, the strategy was not. By

limiting them to such a small number of themes, we unwittingly

discouraged many potential proposals.

In subsequent years, we fixed some mistakes and made some

new ones. For example, we quickly realized that in order to

encourage the widest possible participation in the conference, we

would need to remove restrictions on the range of topics.

However, we wanted to emphasize that the conference still was

rigorous, even if its scope was not narrowly defined. This led

us to overemphasize how research-oriented these presentations

needed to be, and caused confusion about what sort of work

counted as “scholarly.” Some instructors walked away from the

CFP with the perception that only controlled, double-blind

experiments were eligible for inclusion, or that only topics on

the cutting edge of educational technology were welcome.

Humanities professors seemed particularly hesitant about the

perceived emphasis on social science research methods—a problem

that has plagued the scholarship of teaching and learning more

generally (Chick 2012).

After several years of experimentation, we finally crafted a

proposal that we felt invited the widest possible participation

while still providing direction about key needed qualities. We

have been using this CFP, with minor modifications, ever since.

While iterating the CFP, we resolutely kept one feature the

same: the peer review requirement. Each year, we have made the

following statement: “Proposals will be masked and then blind

reviewed by the Symposium Planning Committee—a committee of

faculty from across the university’s schools.” Peer review has

significantly improved the quality of the conference, partly by

enabling us to reject low-quality proposals, but also by enabling

us to invoke the “revise & resubmit” option. This option has

enabled us to coach proposal authors on how to craft their

subject for a teaching conference. Because the proposals go

through a blind peer review, getting into the conference now

counts; it carries weight when presenters list it on their CV

curricula vitae or as part of their annual reviews. And it gives

the reviewers valuable experience in learning about a wide

variety of scholarly approaches to teaching.

Presentation formats

After specifying a range of invited themes, our CFP outlines

the available formats in which presentations can be made.

Currently, we offer 6 7 formats beyond the plenary session:

Short concurrent presentation sessions (30 minutes);

Long concurrent interactive sessions (50 or 60 minutes);

Extended-length interactive sessions (75 or 90 minutes);

lunchtime roundtable sessions (60 minutes);

poster presentations (the poster session runs 1.5 to 2

hours); and

resource fair displays.

Instructors may indicate their top format choices, but the

committee sometimes suggests that another format might better fit

the proposal. In addition to these session formats, I, with some

help from the committee, also plan an opening plenary session.

These formats emerged in response to a variety of needs. We

created the short sessions to provide more options for faculty

members who were intimidated by the idea of leading a 50- or 60-

minute session. We also found that it often appealed to newer or

adjunct faculty members and adjuncts, who might not be well-

enough connected on campus to find co-presenters for a panel or

joint presentation. These instructors needed a more concise

format so they could present as a single presenter on a more

limited topic.

On the other end of the spectrum, some faculty had developed

complex interactive games or simulations. They wanted the

opportunity to discuss the theory and research on their approach

while also giving participants a taste of actually playing the

game or doing the simulation. But it could be hard to run a

complex game in the context of a scholarly discussion in 45

thirty or even sixty minutes. So, longer extended-length formats

eventually made their way into our list of options.

Roundtables remain one of the most frequently requested

formats. Their popularity reveals the importance of creating

spaces for college faculty to raise questions that do no’t have

simple answers—issues for which reflective, varied, and informed

discussion may prove more valuable than any suggested solution.

These discussions are still usually informed by scholarship and

instructors’ own inquiry into the issues, but the deliberative

format foregrounds the importance of intellectual exchange,

reflection, and community, rather than definitive data sets or

recommended “best -practices.”

Whether faculty are familiar with poster session formats

will depend on their disciplinary background. Humanities

scholars rarely request this format. But some faculty members

are not only familiar with the format, but prefer it. It

eliminates the need to prepare a formal oral presentation and

instead enables the presenter to have many one-on-one discussions

with those who stop to view the poster. We usually have at least

as many of these as we do the 30-minute sessions.

In short, we found that providing a variety of presentation

options was a key strategy for making the conference inclusive, a

strategy that was at least as important as the CFP’s language and

guidelines.

The value of a plenary session

We have found it valuable to reserve a premium time slot,

one without any competing sessions, for topics of widespread

interest. This enables all of the conference attendees to

converse about a shared concern, a conversation that then becomes

a touchstone for the rest of the conference. In the first

several years, our plenary session focused on local issues—the

general education program, the acquisition of a nearby wilderness

preserve as a teaching and research space, and our campus’s

global learning initiative. But most recently, the conference

planning committee has chosen topics of national concern in

higher education, including the current debates about the value

and meaning of a college degree or the ways that online education

and technological tools are changing the face of higher

education. By focusing on current national conversations about

higher education, we nearly doubled the attendance at the

plenary. Faculty expressed gratitude at for the opportunity to

collectively reflect on these pressing questions about the

meaning of their work in our society. It seems clear that, at

the beginning of a new school year, faculty are eager for

opportunities to step back from the details of their syllabi and

assignments and think about the overall goals of higher education

in American society and the changing nature of the profession.

Rather than detracting from the conference’s primary focus on

teaching and learning, these broader issues place that focus in a

meaningful context.

Maintaining focus & quality

In the early years of our conference, we found ourselves

responding to misconceptions about the event and attempts to

insert activities or sessions that did no’t fit our goals.

Some proposals seemed to approach it as a show-and-tell

affair― -- a parade of interesting, but not obviously

transferable, anecdotes about assignments or teaching

activities. These authors were enthusiastic about something

they did in their own course and wanted to tell others about

it. However, the proposals did not show how their approaches

could be adapted by others― – in others’ fields, or even in

another course in the same field. They often did not

identify the underlying teaching & learning principles that

made their approach successful. We do allow—even encourage—

faculty members to share what they do in their classrooms.

But the CFP pushes them to frame their work in terms of its

learning value for others, the evidence they can provide

about student learning, and the existing literature on their

pedagogy or discipline.

A number of support offices on campus saw our event as an

advertising opportunity for their programs and services.

Instructional technology, student life programs, the

library, academic support services, the writing center,

disability services, and other programs requested regular

sessions in the conference. However, most of these

organizations wished to advertise their programs, not to

engage in inquiry about effective teaching. We eventually

solved this problem by creating a resource fair.

At the same time, we have had to make it clear that some

groups or issues simply do no’t belong at such a conference.

This is not the site for sexual harassment training,

warnings about phishing emails, or Excel workshops. A well-

designed CFP will make clear that only teaching-related

topics are eligible for inclusion, and since we first

introduced the CFP, we have stopped having to respond to

these sorts of requests.

We also have had to show that a wide range of “scholarly”

approaches to teaching are welcome. Most college faculty at

teaching-oriented institutions like ours are not conducting

ready-to-publish SoTL research, but many assume that a

conference on teaching and learning can only include

presentations on “rigorous” original scholarship. Over

time, we have tweaked the wording of the call for proposals

to invite them to consider inquiry into their own classroom

as a valid basis for offering a presentation, discussion, or

workshop for other faculty.

We also have also had to make clear that the conference is

not only focused on new or “innovative” teaching strategies.

In fact, some of our most popular sessions have been devoted

to topics of longstanding concern to college faculty:

leading effective discussions, using visuals to create

interaction with students in a lecture, creating a

democratic classroom space, and working with students on

undergraduate research, for example.

In our experience, many proposal authors struggle to think

clearly about their target audience: college faculty outside

their area of specialization. Few small or even mid-size

colleges universities have multiple faculty members working

in the exact same area of specialization. As a result, most

presenters need to translate their topics and strategies for

a broader audience. In the later versions of our CFP, we

offered additional guidance about this issue. But we also

recognize that this is always a component of the scholarship

of teaching and learning: making one’s work public, in

writing or in oral presentations, always requires thinking

carefully about one’s audience and learning to communicate

with it.

Reviewing proposals

Proposals are blind-reviewed by the planning committee

members, who evaluate them according to a common rubric and then

assign one of three recommendations: accept, revise and resubmit,

or reject. We convene to discuss the reviews and achieve

consensus about each proposal.

We have found the revise-and-resubmit decision to be a

particularly useful tool for providing guidance to faculty whose

proposals could potentially be valuable but are not yet

appropriate for a teaching conference. But providing such

direction to fellow faculty―one’s own colleagues―can be a tricky

social negotiation. Planning committees can sometimes be fearful

of appearing over-critical. Conversely, committees can become

overzealous about offering direction. We have seen proposal

authors withdraw their proposals entirely rather than submit to

extensive revision requests. Nevertheless, this option provides

a helpful escape valve from a common dilemma: accepting weak or

inappropriate proposals (and thus damaging the reputation of the

conference in the eyes of the faculty) or, on the other hand,

rejecting many proposals with potential (and thus scaring away

potential proposal authors).

Who Benefits, and Why

The component parts of a teaching conference engage faculty

in different ways and in several aspects of scholarly approaches

to teaching and learning.

Instructors and administrators who attend

In the most recent year for which we have data (2013), 137

faculty and staff signed in as attendees in at least one

conference session and 43 faculty and staff appeared on the

conference program as presenters.1 Among those attending were

1 Presenters are not included in the attendance count for each session.However, nearly all presenters do choose to attend sessions other than

40% of the university’s 240 full-time faculty and 7% of our 269

adjunct faculty members. The opening plenary session itself

attracted 97 attendees.

Since our first conference, we have collected surveys from

all conference attendees. We have long known from the surveys

that those who attend find the conference valuable. When asked

if the session “covered topics I wanted to learn about;”

“provided useful information, ideas, or resources for my

teaching;” “was effectively organized and led;” “facilitated

valuable conversation with other faculty;” or “helped me feel

supported in my teaching,” the average response across sessions

for each measure is a 4.4 or 4.5 on a five-point scale, where 1

represents “strongly disagree” and 5 represents “strongly

agree.”.

While we always hope that instructors who attend the

conference learn about the topics of the sessions themselves― –

their ostensible reason for attending in the first place― – we

also hope the conference shifts their thinking in other, less

obvious ways. We hope they gain an understanding of how

their own. For sessions they attend, they appear in the attendance count.

conference sessions on teaching can work. We want them to

experience first-hand how teaching and learning questions can be

worthy in their own right of serious academic discussion. We

want them to get a taste of the corpus of published scholarly

literature that these discussions draw from and to realize that

engaging with others on teaching questions can lead to new

understandings of one’s own teaching. Finally, we want to give

them partners for their ongoing learning about teaching. At the

conference, instructors from often very different disciplines

meet colleagues who share interests with them, leading to

informal networks where faculty exchange experiences, ideas, and

reflections about teaching. These networks sometimes lead to

collaborations on new sessions in following years.

The conference has also provided a way to help

administrators and staff stay in touch with what is happening in

the classroom at our university. Department chairs, deans, and

the provost regularly attend, as do representatives from academic

support units, student life offices, and marketing.

In addition, we are have been able to dramatically increase

the number of topics addressed by the CTE in any given year.

Over the past 5 five years, 121 sessions have been delivered to

our faculty, often on topics that our director would not have

thought to feature but which proved popular to attendees, such as

“using humor as a pedagogical tool to address controversial

issues,” the question of “how open-ended should open-ended

projects be” in math courses, or how a game-based learning

approach could teach students about the conflict in Syria.

Presenters

By allowing all faculty members (part-time and full, tenure-

track and non-tenure-track) to submit proposals for the

conference, we have expanded the portion of our faculty who have

some experience with scholarly approaches to teaching. Over the

past five5 years, 106 faculty members2 have given a conference

presentation on a teaching-related topic at our conference.

By proposing and presenting on teaching topics, faculty

presenters gain experience in sharing their classroom inquiry in

scholarly ways. The CFP itself is educative about the

scholarship of teaching and learning, though it does not draw

2 This number represents all participants in the Teaching Symposium from 2009-2013.

attention to that goal. Those who submit proposals must follow

the guidelines of the proposal process, which encourage

presenters to document a question or challenge, identify sources

of evidence about that issue, present possible solutions, and

ground their discussions in the previously published literature.

When they attend the conference in August, they also gain

practice in presenting on teaching, practice that helps to

prepare them to present at regional or national conferences that

include a teaching focus.

Beginning in 2011, we also began surveying all presenters

and planning committee members in order to glean qualitative

feedback about the value that these formal participantsthey found

in the activity. What motivates them to participate in the

conference, and what do they value most about the experience?3

I was invited by a colleague to take part on a panel in one of my research

area specialties. I participated because I was interested in how other faculty

members dealt with this issue and I enjoyed the opportunity to work with

faculty outside my department / school.

3 The following statements, taken from the surveys, have been transcribed exactly without correcting spelling, punctuation, or grammatical mistakes.

To be perfectly honest, my main motivator was probably the need to build my

professional development file for promotion. But running a close second, was

my desire to help faculty from non-writing departments see that students’

need help develop writing skills throughout their undergraduate careers and

that all professors that assign writing should play a role in this.

I’m an innovative teacher, and I love the freedom and encouragement I have

at St. Ed’s to develop my methods and play to my strengths. I was excited

about a method I’ve honed over the past two years, and I wanted to share it

with folks within AND outside of my discipline.

I am surprised by how valuable it was to be able to discuss my topic with

people outside my discipline. Very validating that so many were interested in

hearing about it. Also, very helpful as professional development.

It made me feel like contributing to the culture of education was very

attainable. It’s not an environment where teaching is stagnant.

By proposing and presenting on teaching topics, faculty

presenters gain experience in sharing their classroom

inquiry in scholarly ways. The CFP itself is educative

about the scholarship of teaching and learning, though it

does not draw attention to that goal. Those who submit

proposals must follow the guidelines of the proposal

process, which encourage presenters to document a

question or challenge, identify sources of evidence about

that issue, present possible solutions, and ground their

discussions in the previously published literature. When

they attend the conference in August, they also gain

practice in presenting on teaching, practice that helps

to prepare them to present at regional or national

conferences that include a teaching focus.

Although our questions – designed to elicit open-ended text

responses – yielded a rich variety of reflections, we did see

certain themes emerge from the comments. Every year, the most

common motivation for participating in the conference was the

opportunity to share expertise about a teaching issue or project

with colleagues. In addition, five other themes routinely

appeared as primary or secondary motivations for participating.

Presenters cited a desire to learn more about educational

research and effective teaching; a desire to learn about what

other faculty members were doing in relation to a teaching issue

or question; a desire to contribute to the community’s

conversations about teaching; a desire to make connections with

other faculty colleagues, often from other departments; and

finally, many were motivated by an invitation from a colleague to

co-present or to participate in a panel.

When we asked, “In what ways was your participation in this

year’s conference valuable to you?”—a question that offered them

the opportunity to contrast their pre-conference motivation with

their post-conference assessment—we heard a few new themes and

priorities. While participants continued to frequently cite that

they valued sharing their expertise about a teaching issue or

project with colleagues, that response was no longer the most

common. Rising to the top spot for frequency of citation were

comments about making connections with other faculty colleagues.

The second-most-frequent response cited how valuable it was to

get feedback from their colleagues on their ideas or work. Four

other themes were also prominent: participants valued learning

more about educational research and effective teaching through

the conversations prompted by their presentations or roundtable

discussions; they valued the sense that they were contributing to

the community’s conversations about a given teaching issue or

question; and they valued forcing themselves to formulate and

articulate their work on a teaching issue, do the literature

review or learn more about the topic, and make a formal

presentation about the topic. Finally, participants noted that

they could list their participation on their curriculum vitae and

count it as a valued form of professional development or

service.In presenters’ responses to the survey, they indicate

that they see the conference as:

an opportunity to share their expertise about a teaching issue

with colleagues;

an opportunity to gain credit for doing a conference

presentation or scholarly activity;

an opportunity to gain practice in doing a conference

presentation on teaching to colleagues;

an opportunity to improve their own teaching;

a way to learn more about educational research;

an opportunity to learn about and participate in educational

development as a professional field [“I feel a sense of

professionalism to be involved in these activities”]

an opportunity to contribute to the community’s conversations

about teaching.

While I have been emphasizing the ways in which a teaching

conference draws more faculty members into scholarly teaching

approaches for teaching, these participants’ responses also

remind us of other significant benefits. First and most

fundamentally, the conference provides space for a practice that

we highly value: faculty members’ efforts to continue developing

as teachers. Second, and perhaps more importantly, it enables

them to engage in that development in collaborative, collegial

ways. Improving our teaching is not something that only has to

happen in the quiet of our offices, late at night, by ourselves,

as we tweak assignments, revise syllabi, or mull over our student

evaluation comments. Nor is it limited to the hallways of our

home department or even discipline. Ideally, it is shared work,

work that is enriched by cross-pollination with other disciplines

and that, like those of other professions, is supported by both

formal and informal networks and structures. The structure of a

conference enables us to bring that often solitary teaching labor

out into a lively and shared conversation.

Third, it is also work for which we can receive professional

recognition: – a line item on our CV, a paragraph in our annual

review or tenure portfolio. Because this work matters, and

because it contributes to the effectiveness of our colleagues and

our whole profession, it is worthy of credit and it counts. By

conducting a blind peer review, the conference has created a

structure that enables the collaborative work of teaching to be

recognized within formal reward systems. Our faculty frequently

comment that thisReceiving credit motivates them faculty to

continue participating in spite of many competing demands on

their time.

The planning committee

Over the past five years, 37 faculty members, representing

members of all of the university’s schools (including Education,

Behavioral & Social Sciences, Humanities, Natural Sciences, and

Management & Business), our general education program, as well as

our school for nontraditional (adult) undergraduates,) have

served on the conference planning committee. One wrote, “Being

part of the Steering Committee is an opportunity both to meet and

work with others I might not otherwise get to know but in passing

AND to become further engaged in a sense of teaching-related

things people are doing and talking about both around campus

(Committee meetings) and in their classrooms [ . . .] VERY

valuable.” This statement reflects what committee members most

frequently emphasize as the value of the experience: developing

closer connections with other faculty and becoming more involved

in what one called “the teaching community.” Increasing their

involvement in that community—and not just as teachers, but as

facilitators of a culture that focuses on careful, evidence-

based, inquiry-driven, and reflective teaching practices—is the

goal we hoped to achieve.

By enabling faculty to participate in the creation and peer

review of a conference on teaching, planning committee members

also learn about scholarly work on teaching and how to evaluate

it. In particular, reviewers learn to apply their discipline-

specific scholarly training to the review of presentations about

teaching and learning questions.

The culture of teaching on campus

Perhaps most importantly, the conference has helped create a

campus culture where scholarly presentations on, and

conversations about, teaching and learning have become an

expected norm. And part of that norm is that the faculty lead

these conversations, —not just the teaching center staff. The

Teaching Symposium, as we call our conference, is talked about

year round. (“That would be a good topic to present on at the

Teaching Symposium.” . . .Or . “Perhaps next year, we can

propose a session on this for the Symposium.”) New faculty to

our campus are immediately met with an opportunity to meet with

other faculty to learn about and discuss teaching issues and get

a taste of the high value placed on teaching at our campus.

Faculty members routinely report how energizing they found the

conference, how they met new people, and how they discovered who

was doing interesting work in areas that interested them.

Conclusion

In their seminal book on Disciplinary Styles in the Scholarship of

Teaching and Learning (2002), Mary Taylor authors Huber and Sherwyn

P. Morreale argue that disciplines ground scholarly approaches to

teaching, but that “growth in knowledge also comes at the borders

of disciplinary imagination.” (p. 2). They elaborate: “As

reading— –and raiding—across the fields becomes more common, as

interdisciplinary conversations become more frequent, as

collaborations make them more substantive, the scholarship of

teaching and learning is widening what historian of science Peter

Gallison calls a ‘trading zone’. It is in this borderland that

scholars from different disciplinary cultures come to trade their

wares—insights, ideas, and findings” (Huber & Morreale, 2002pp.

2-3).

Framed as a trading zone or a borderland, a teaching

conference enables faculty members from all corners of campus to

find their way into conversations about teaching and learning

with unexpected interlocutors, building connections around the

one professional practice that we all share in common: our

teaching. There are better-known ways to support the scholarship

of teaching and learning (Schwartz & Haynie, 2013), but we have

found an on-campus teaching conference to be a particularly

effective strategy. (Schwartz & Haynie, 2013).

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