Community College of Philadelphia has been accepted into the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) Campus Program. CASTL consists of over 65 campuses across the United States and Canada organized into twelve clusters, with each cluster sponsoring a different aspect of work related to the Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) agenda sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation and the http://www.aahe.org/">American Association of Higher Education
The mission of the CASTL Campus Program is to promote the values of SoTL through specific work ranging from investigating active learning, to SoTL issues at research universities, to developing tools for assessing success of first year programs.
That teaching and learning could be a proper subject for scholarship was first proposed by Ernest Boyer in his 1990 report, Scholarship Reconsidered. In that Carnegie Foundation sponsored work, Boyer sought to expand the definition of scholarship beyond the limited borders of library research and formal publication. He wrote:
Basic research has come to be viewed as the first and most essentialform of scholarly activity, with other functions flowing from it. Scholars are academics who conduct research, publish, and then perhaps convey their knowledge to students or apply what they have learned. The latter functions grow out of scholarship, they are not to be considered a part of it. But knowledge is not necessarily developed in such a linear manner. The arrow of causality can, and frequently does, point in both directions. Theory surely leads to practice. But practice also leads to theory. And teaching, at its best, shapes both research and practice. (pgs.15-16).
Over the last ten years the Carnegie Foundation in collaboration with the American Association for Higher Education has promoted the SoTL agenda through publications by scholars such as Carnegie President Lee Shulman; Senior Carnegie scholar Pat Hutchings; K. Patricia Cross, Tom Angelo, and other prominent teacher/scholars, as well as through various colloquia and conferences. The CASTL Campus Program is the most widespread and ambitiously coordinated of these efforts. Of the nineclusters that were accepting membership at the time of CCP’s application, the one sponsored by Oxford College of Emory University seemed most compatible with a significant portion of the academic conversations and professional development that has been conducted at our institution over the last five years. In its mission statement, Oxford College describes its SoTL cluster Project as follows:
Oxford College of Emory University will form a CASTL cluster committed to Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects which focus on learning that involves the heart as well as the head, learning which involves the whole person, lest we produce such “educated” people as Parker Palmer describes as having “minds that do not know how to feel and hearts that do not know how to think.” This “center-without-walls” will be a collaborative endeavor bringing together faculty, staff, and students from institutions interested in holistic educational practices, practices that promote what Alexander Astin has characterized as “affective talent”—e.g., empathy, a sense of social responsibility, the capacity for teamwork and leadership—as well as deep and enduring learning. It will encourage the exploration and dissemination of information regarding the cognitive-affective connection in learning (CAL).
Four main goals have been developed by Oxford:
In addition to the above goals, the Oxford cluster will focus on practices that would include: theory practice/service learning, active/collaborative learning, learning communities, leadership development, student engagement, interdisciplinary studies, ethics and social justice, student assessment/portfolio development.
Along with Community College of Philadelphia, Wright State Medical School, Agnes Scott College, and Kennesaw State University are members of the Oxford cluster.
As part of accepting membership to the CASTL Campus Program, the College, through the strong support of Dr. Judith Gay and Dr. Sam Hirsch, has agreed to a three year commitment to the CASTL Campus Program, providing the opportunity for a coordinated and sustained approach to a professional development activity that may enrich faculty not only through on campus discussion but through connections with colleagues across a number of college campuses. Presently, Tom Ott and Neil Wells are serving as campus coordinators for our participation in the program.
While the impetus for joining the CASTL Campus Program emerged from the Scholarship of teaching and learning conversations in Fall 2003, which focused on reading instruction in Developmental Education, the elements that make up SoTL as well as the CASTL Campus Program should attract faculty across the College. Thus the benefit to the College should be the provision of a focused and disciplined approach to professional development around the relationship of the cognitive and affective in student learning and faculty teaching within the context of an ongoing multi-campus conversation. So that this effort may achieve the broadest possible participation, Tom Ott and Neil Wells will offer an information session for all college faculty during spring 2004 to introduce interested colleagues to the aims and opportunities of the CASTL Campus Program.
References
For more information about the CASTL Program or Scholarship of Teaching and Learning activities at the College, contact Tom Ott, tel: 215 751-8530 or Neil Wells, tel: 215 751-8673.
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Maintained by Jay Howard,Jan 2004