A New Mathematical Metric for Inclusive Excellence in Teaching Applied Before and During the COVID-19 Era

In this paper a novel metric for evaluating inclusive excellence in teaching is introduced and applied to students' performance in classes before and during the COVID-19 era. The novel metric, named the Inclusive Excellence Ratio (IER), is designed to simultaneously reflect the two desirable characteristics embraced by inclusive excellence teaching: strong student performance and low variation in performance across all students. The computation of the IER given student test score data is simple and straightforward: it is the statistical sample mean divided by the sample standard deviation. Consequently, the IER is high when the students' test scores are high and variance is low, suggesting it may provide a useful quantitative measure for those educational innovators seeking to experiment with new, effective teaching methodologies that boost inclusive excellence. The IER is applied to evaluate a posteriori student performance taken from cumulative aggregate data from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) undergraduate math finance classes involving 378 students over two academic years (2018 to 2020), spanning five quarters before and one quarter during the COVID-19 era of remote teaching at UCI. Conclusions are drawn and discussed comparing the quality of in-person teaching environments to remote teaching environments.

Transitioning from Early to Mid-Career as an Asian American Scholar of Religion

This article explores the post-tenure challenges and opportunities for Asian American scholars of religion. Although the pressure of service can be a burden on mid-level faculty, service can offer a fulfilling way to integrate one’s scholarly work and one’s commitment to Asian American communities. Moreover, even as excellence in teaching often is not given much (if any) weight in promotion to full professor, it can be mutually illuminative to experiment with teaching at the same time as one is also reassessing one’s field and place within it. Indeed, the mid-career offers a unique standpoint from which one can bring teaching and research together in a synergistic way. Revised approaches to courses in comparative theology and Hinduism both enhanced the author’s scholarship as well as allowed her to better serve her students. Integrating teaching, scholarship, and advocacy can be deeply productive for Asian American scholars of religion after tenure.

SoTL in the Margins: Teaching-Focused Role Case Studies

The number of teaching-focused faculty (TFF) continues to increase, raising concerns about opportunities to engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) for academics who are hired to focus on teaching rather than research. Various names for these teaching-focused positions include, but are not limited to: instructional, limited-term faculty; permanent, but not eligible for tenure; equivalent to tenure-track (eligible for tenure); and casual teaching-focused. Regardless of title, TFF face a unique challenge: hired for excellence in teaching and committed to improving teaching and learning, they are often not granted support to engage in professional development or research related to teaching and learning. These and other challenges are associated with their academically marginalized positions. The authors are members of the Advocacy Committee of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL). This paper builds on a session we offered at the ISSOTL conference in Calgary in 2017 where we invited TFF to contribute narrative examples of institutional SoTL challenges and their strategies for overcoming them. We describe potential solutions to creating institutional cultures that are supportive of TFF engaging in SoTL. We finish by offering recommendations for creating a SoTL teaching-focused community within ISSOTL to provide social and professional support.

SoTL in the Margins: Teaching-Focused Role Case Studies

The number of teaching-focused faculty (TFF) continues to increase, raising concerns about opportunities to engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) for academics who are hired to focus on teaching rather than research. Various names for these teaching-focused positions include, but are not limited to: instructional, limited-term faculty; permanent, but not eligible for tenure; equivalent to tenure-track (eligible for tenure); and casual teaching-focused. Regardless of title, TFF face a unique challenge: hired for excellence in teaching and committed to improving teaching and learning, they are often not granted support to engage in professional development or research related to teaching and learning. These and other challenges are associated with their academically marginalized positions. The authors are members of the Advocacy Committee of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL). This paper builds on a session we offered at the ISSOTL conference in Calgary in 2017 where we invited TFF to contribute narrative examples of institutional SoTL challenges and their strategies for overcoming them. We describe potential solutions to creating institutional cultures that are supportive of TFF engaging in SoTL. We finish by offering recommendations for creating a SoTL teaching-focused community within ISSOTL to provide social and professional support.

The Profile of the Supervising Lecturer: On the Association between Supervision Outputs and the Nature of the Supervision

This study is a pioneer study that seeks to explore the association between supervision outputs and the nature of the supervision (by e-mail, face-to-face, the student’s independence). In addition, the association between the supervising lecturer’s personal background (gender, age), professional background (faculty, tenure, excellence in teaching), and the supervision outputs (articles written, presentations at conferences) and nature of the supervision is explored. The purpose of the study is to explore items in depth so that they can be used in developing a questionnaire exploring the association between supervision outputs and the nature of the supervision. The research findings show, for various items, significant interactions between age and gender, excellence in teaching, and tenure. Significant interactions were also found between gender and faculty, as well as between age and excellence in teaching. Differences were also found between faculties. The findings of this study might have practical consequences for establishing the output-guided association in research supervision, as well as for establishing the practical association between the nature of the supervision and the lecturer’s personal background, professional background, the supervision outputs, and the nature of the supervision. These findings constitute a foundation for methodological thinking concerning supervision by staff members, a subject that has considerable meaning for the initial steps taken by young student researchers and for the systematic establishment of the pattern of academic supervision, which although not frontal teaching may be even more demanding.

No Disrespect: Student and Faculty Perceptions of the Qualities of Ineffective Teachers

Research examining excellence in teaching is extensive. Nevertheless, research examining the inverse—what constitutes poor or ineffective teaching—has not been as systematic. The current research addresses this gap in the literature by examining student and faculty perceptions of the qualities and behaviors of ineffective teachers. Students and faculty identified being disrespectful as the number one perceived quality of ineffective teachers. Both groups of respondents also agreed that having weak rapport was indicative of ineffective teachers. Overall, students had a tendency to focus more on the social aspects of the student–teacher relationship, whereas faculty focused more on professional competencies. These findings provide additional support on teaching misbehaviors to avoid both in and outside of the classroom.