Survey Results
The SoTL Initiative conducted a survey of UW Oshkosh faculty and instructional academic staff in the Spring 2004 semester. Respondents were asked to identify the teaching challenges that they experience in their classrooms on the UW Oshkosh campus. The response rate was high (N=144) and a majority of the respondents wrote extensive comments to support their answers. The following teaching challenges are general categories representing the most frequent survey responses:
- Student motivation
- Student writing ability
- Grade inflation (grading pressure and unrealistic student expectations)
- Large class size
- Difference in Faculty/Student Expectations for Academic Life
A number of responses to address these teaching and learning challenges are currently being planned by the SoTL Steering Committee.
- A goal of the SoTL approach is to allow classroom challenges to become research questions that motivate scholarly work resulting in findings that can be applied in our own and other campus communities. Our first response was to invite a third class of UW Oshkosh Teaching Scholars to address these issues in research projects which we funded. (See the appropriate link for application guidelines) The results of those projects will be broadly disseminated to the campus community in February '06.
- A second response to the survey results is the compilation of published SoTL research related to these teaching and learning challenges. These works will be made available to the campus teaching community in various formats - via the website, in conversation groups, and through regular e-mails.
- A third response is the Provost's Teaching and Learning Summit, scheduled for September 26-30, 2005.