David Voelker is an Associate Professor of Humanistic Studies and History at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay, where he currently chairs the history program. He arrived at UWGB after completing a Ph.D. in U.S. history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2003. He teaches primarily early American history, including introductory, upper-level, and online courses. Since 2005, he has engaged in UWGB’s First Nations Studies Fusion program, which focuses on the integration of American Indian history, culture, and pedagogy into courses across the curriculum. He was a Wisconsin Teaching Fellow (WTF) in 2006–2007 and twice participated in UWGB's Teaching Scholar program. He documented his WTF project in an August 2008 article in The History Teacher. As a participant in the OPID-sponsored Signature Pedagogies project, he co-authored with Joel Sipress (UW-Superior) an essay on the impact of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) on history pedagogy. He and Sipress went on to publish an essay in the March 2011 Journal of American History that combined historical analysis and SoTL research in order to suggest an alternative to the dominant coverage model of teaching introductory history. His current SoTL project is an assessment of how effectively his argument-based introductory American course improves students’ understanding of historical thinking and the work that historians do. David's session will be replacing that of Renee Meyers, who sadly passed away this March.

Abstract: Getting Started Doing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) offers an exciting opportunity for higher education professionals to integrate teaching and research. SoTL scholars conduct research into student learning primarily using the tools of their own disciplines. This participatory workshop will help faculty begin the process of developing a SoTL research question focused on a learning problem and on the collection and analysis of evidence of student learning. Participants will engage in an open discussion of the purposes and goals of SoTL, the challenges of doing SoTL research, and the basic steps for getting started as a SoTL researcher. Participants should be prepared to discuss student learning and learning problems in a specific course, for which they will formulate a possible research question and will begin considering research methodology.