The Dr. John Chizmar & Dr. Anthony Ostrosky Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award

The Cross Endowed Chair at Illinois State University is pleased to announce that Dr. Sarah Boesdorfer from the Department of Chemistry is the recipient of the 2023-24 Dr. John Chizmar and Dr. Anthony Ostrosky Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award.

“I am an educator,” says Dr. Boesdorfer. "SoTL work helps me to educate and to impact teaching and learning.”

Dr. Boesdorfer’s SoTL work focuses not only on informing and impacting her own teaching, but also promoting SoTL with other educators, often in STEM. Her SoTL projects inform teaching practices directly, including work on nontraditional grading methods in large lectures. She also encourages current and future educators to improve their teaching by using others’ SoTL research or conducting their own SoTL projects, where they systematically collect and analyze data about their students, their classes, and their teaching. Dr. Boesdorfer applies these methods in workshops and learning communities she leads through the Center for Integrated Professional Development.

Dr. Boesdorfer has involved 16 Illinois State undergraduate preservice teachers in different SoTL projects, some of which have been presented or published. Involving future teachers helps to instill the importance of SoTL research on teaching and learning before they ever get into the classroom. Research also suggests that when education majors are involved in research as undergraduates, they understand the use of data for teaching improvement better and are more likely to collect and use it for systematic reflections.

Dr. Boesdorfer has worked with 55 Illinois State graduate students on action research projects in high school classrooms. These projects are conducted by the teachers for what they, and their students, need. Sometimes these projects are very small scale and have been done many times before (e.g., a project that looked at the impact on students of doing lab experiments before lectures on a topic), but they are what the teacher needs to be ‘convinced’ to make a change in their teaching practice, which will improve student learning. At other times, the projects are large and significant enough to be presented or published, which she encourages and facilitates when possible. These graduate students are then able to share their improved understanding of teaching and learning in chemistry, even beyond their classmates and colleagues. But in all of these projects, whether small and unpublished or shared more broadly, the students have been the study of teaching and learning, and those projects have impacted teaching and learning, which is Dr. Boesdorfer’s goal with her SoTL work. Here are a few examples of her work:

• Boesdorfer, S.B. (2023). Impact of Covid-19 pandemic on experienced introductory STEM instructors’ teaching practices. Journal of STEM Teacher Education, 58(1).
• Boesdorfer, S.B., Anderson, S. g, Botello, J., g Webb, K., g Mowery, D., g Daughety, B., g & Harris, M. g (2023). Experiences with flipped classroom methodology in US high school chemistry courses: Lesson learned from action research projects. Journal of Chemical Education, 100(6), 2096-2104.
• Boesdorfer, S.B. & Daugherty, J.g (2020). Using criteria-based digital badging in high school chemistry unit to improve student learning. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 29(3), 421-430.
• Boesdorfer, S. B. (2019). Providing Clinical Experience for Preservice Chemistry Teachers through a Homeschool Association Collaboration. Innovations in Science Teacher Education, 4(2).
• Boesdorfer, S.B., Baldwin, E.u, & Lieberum, K. A.u (2018). Emphasizing learning: Using standards-based grading in a large non-majors’ general chemistry survey course. Journal of Chemical Education, 95(8), 1291-1300.

The Cross Endowed Chair at Illinois State University is pleased to announce that Dr. Elahe Javadi from the School of Information Technology is the recipient of the 2022-23 Dr. John Chizmar and Dr. Anthony Ostrosky Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award.

Dr. Javadi’s experiences with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) have helped her to better understand ways in which to support her students’ learning and engagement. Dr. Javadi has completed numerous SoTL studies, which she has shared in a variety of peer-reviewed journals and at disciplinary conferences. Specifically, Dr. Javadi has studied aspects of her introductory information systems course to understand (and ultimately promote) independent learning and student engagement in online course discussion experiences. She has extended this work to include the investigation of potential impacts of social comparison by allowing students to view an anonymized graded (with formative feedback) transcript of online discussions. Additionally, she has studied the impacts of providing structured, elaborative feedback to students to specify how their online discussion posts and comments could be improved.

Dr. Javadi’s SoTL work in upper-level information systems courses has focused on investigating techniques for experiential learning, and those related to methods for addressing group work challenges. She utilized flipped classrooms and Dojos sessions (intensive deliverable-oriented work sessions) for improving group processes and countering the prevalent divide-and-conquer approach to group work. In her most recent project, Dr. Javadi examined the affordance of virtual reality environments for group collaboration for peer learning. She values service learning and has studied a few different forms of involving students in service-learning activities that benefit both Illinois State students and the K-12 community around the university. The SoTL aspect of this work has evolved into a form of ongoing participatory action research (PAR).

Dr. Javadi’s SoTL projects have made differences in the classroom, have been shared at international and national research forums, and have been consistently shared at the Illinois State University Teaching Symposium. Her SoTL efforts have been supported by the School of Information Technology, The Office of the Cross Chair in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, the Center for Integrated Professional Development, and the Center for Civic Engagement. Further, her work has been shaped by collaborations with Illinois State colleagues, peers from other academic institutions, industry experts, and members of the community. Here are a few examples of the publications and presentations:

• Javadi, E., Gebauer, J., and S. Tanner. (2022). Flipped Classrooms & Project Dojos for Enhancing Peer-Learning in Classrooms. Proceedings of the EDSIG Conference, Clearwater, FL.
• Javadi, E., Gebauer, J., and S. Tanner. (2022). Flipped Classrooms & Project Dojos for Enhancing Peer-Learning in Classrooms. Proceedings of the AMCIS Conference (TREO), Minneapolis, Minnesota.
• Javadi, E., Gebauer, J., Darner, R., Antink-Meyer, A. (2021). Infusing Artificial Intelligence in IS Curriculum through Service-Learning: A Summary of Pilot Programs, Proceedings of the EDSIG Conference, Washington DC.
• Javadi, E., Gebauer, J., Novotny, N. (2019). Informational Evaluation & Social Comparison: A Winning Pair for Course Discussion Design. Information Systems Education Journal, 17(1) pp 18-27.
• Javadi, E., Gebauer, J., Lai, J. (2019). Countering Selectivity and Enhancing Integrative Complexity through Visualizing Knowledge Bottlenecks, Proceedings of 25th American Conference on Information Systems, Cancun, Mexico.
• Javadi, E., Gebauer, G., and N. L. Novotny (2018). Mixed-Approach Social Comparison for Improving Online Discussion Efficacy: Insights from Field Experiments, Proceedings of EDSIG Conference on Information Systems & Computing Education, Norfolk, Virginia
• Javadi, E., Tanner, S. (2018). Design and Implementation of an Agile Teaching Framework, Proceedings of the 24th American Conference on Information Systems, New Orleans, LA.

No award was given this year.

The Office of the Cross Endowed Chair at Illinois State University is pleased to announce that Dr. Rebekka Darner, Director of the Center for Mathematics, Science and Technology, is the recipient of the 2020-21 Dr. John Chizmar and Dr. Anthony Ostrosky Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award. Darner has been recognized for her record as a productive SoTL scholar in her discipline and for her mentorship of and advocacy for junior SoTL scholars at Illinois State.

Dr. Darner has been a part of many SoTL projects, drawing collaborators from her Illinois State networks of fellow faculty as well as her students. Citing ties between her SoTL work and improved student learning outcomes, Darner is a reflective teacher-scholar and encourages the same practice in others. “ISU is unique among large public institutions, due to its SoTL community creating a culture of systematic reflection on teaching, regardless of one’s area of inquiry,” Darner stated in her award portfolio. She has found that she has found valuable support through working with her peers in a manner that “sets ISU apart among its institutional peers by enabling a unique approach to student success.”

Darner’s SoTL work has had a targeted focus, with three specific areas of concentration. Darner has worked extensively with the Noyce Scholarships for Teachers of Underrepresented Groups program, engaging with students in this program as both a teacher and a research mentor. With her colleagues, she conducted several SoTL projects to examine the evolution of professional identity in teacher candidates in STEM fields. Additionally, Darner has worked to better understand ways in which she might foster an accuracy orientation in her students. As the director of the general education introductory biology course that serves over 2000 students each year, Darner sought to generate scientific literacy amongst her students, and investigated the effectiveness of the ways in which she worked to accomplish this aim. Finally, Darner has been engaged in work with the Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science model, which has led to a revisioning of a course curriculum for preservice teachers as well as a better understanding of how this model encourages students to develop a more sophisticated understanding of evolution.

Darner’s most recent publications have included the following:

• Jayasinghe, I., Darner, R. (2021). Do emotions, nature relatedness, and conservation concern influence students’ evaluations of arguments about biodiversity conservation? Interdisciplinary Journal of Environmental and Science Education. Doi: 10.29333/ijese/9157
• Sparks, R. A. & Darner, R. (2020). Fostering nonscientist thinking on evolution concepts through the Teaching for Transformative Experiences in Science model. Journal of College Science Teaching, 50(2), 40-48.
• Sparks, R. A., Baldwin, K. E., Darner, R. (2020). Using culturally relevant pedagogy to reconsider the genetics canon. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education. Doi: 10.1128/jmbe.v21i1.1901
• Darner, R. (2019). How can educators confront science denial? Educational Researcher. Doi: 10.3102/0013189X19849415

As a prolific scholar, Darner’s work has been shared in a wide variety of peer-reviewed journals, conference publications, and other venues. Her contributions as a mentor to colleagues and an advocate for SoTL at Illinois State have been consistent and impactful and are interleaved well with her roles on campus as a celebrated teacher and well-respected scholar.

The Office of the Cross Endowed Chair at Illinois State University is pleased to announce that Dr. Anu Gokhale, Professor and Coordinator of Computer Systems Technology, is the recipient of the 2019-20 Dr. John Chizmar and Dr. Anthony Ostrosky Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award. Gokhale has been recognized for her record as a productive SoTL scholar and continued support of the endeavor of SoTL at Illinois State and beyond.

In her award portfolio, Gokhale shared that together with her colleagues also engaged in SoTL, “she pursues methodical inquiries into classroom practices [to] make strides toward systematic change to broaden participation and create inclusive environments in STEM+C” fields. She is a proponent of using “big data” as part of her SoTL projects, bringing a broad view of teaching and learning into her work. Gokhale represents the teacher-scholar ideal, frequently publishing her SoTL work and successfully pursuing grant funding to support her project. At the time this award was bestowed upon Gokhale, she had accrued almost $2 million in grant funding. Gokhale is a frequent invited speaker at national and international conferences and events.

Gokhale’s most current publications have included the following:

• Gokhale, A., Machina, K. (2018). Guided online group discussion enhances student critical thinking skills. International Journal on E-Learning, 12(2), 157-173.
• Pedro, S., Gokhale, A. et al. (2017). Application of PSO-based clustering algorithms on educational databases. IEEE Latin American Conference on Computational Intelligence, pp 1-6.
• Gokhale, A. & Machina, K. (2016). Development of a scale to measure attitudes toward information technology. In L. Tomei (Ed.). Exploring the New Era of Technology-Infused Education. IGI.
• Machina, K. & Gokhale, A. (2015). Interventions for increasing male and female undergraduate interest in information technology. Computer Education, 87, 277-284.

Gokhale has advanced SoTL at ISU by serving as a member of the SoTL Resource Group, a recipient of a SoTL University Research Grant (mentoring student researchers through this process), and as a SoTL Scholar-Mentor. Her continued engagement in SoTL highlights her determination to extend pedagogical content knowledge in her field and engage in continued efforts to grow the field of SoTL.

The Office of the Cross Endowed Chair in SoTL at Illinois State University is pleased to announce that Susan Hildebrandt (Ph.D., University of Iowa), Professor of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, is the recipient of the 2018-19 Dr. John Chizmar & Dr. Anthony Ostrosky Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award. Hildebrandt has been recognized for her excellence in research in the area of teaching and learning as well as her regular and enthusiastic support of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).

Hildebrandt has kept SoTL at the heart of much of her scholarly work. In doing so, she has developed a three distinctive lines of research: teaching languages to students with disabilities, use of service learning as a pedagogy, and pre-teacher knowledge and skill assessment at its intersection with educational policy. Hildebrandt’s scholarship on teaching and learning has been disseminated across a variety of venues: authored and edited books, book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles, blogs, and numerous local, regional, and international presentations. Hildebrandt has regularly received internal and external grant funding for her SoTL work. Hildebrandt states that the scholarship of teaching and learning has “informed her teaching while pushing [her] to find and develop a scholarly voice within national conversations on teacher assessments and world language teacher education programs.” Hildebrandt’s recent SoTL projects have included:

• Hildebrandt, S. A., & Hlas, A. C. (2018). Pedagogical content knowledge and language awareness as evidenced in the World Language edTPA. In P. B. Swanson & S. A. Hildebrandt (Eds.), Researching edTPA promises and problems: Perspectives from English as an additional language, English language arts, and world language teacher education (pp. 143-161). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
• Hlas, A. C., Conroy, K., & Hildebrandt, S. A. (2017). Student teachers and CALL: Personal and pedagogical uses and beliefs. CALICO Journal, 34, 336-354.
• Swanson, P., & Hildebrandt, S. A. (2017). Communicative learning outcomes and world language edTPA: Characteristics of high-scoring portfolios. Hispania, 100, 331-347.
• Hildebrandt, S. A., & Swanson, P. (2016). Understanding the world language edTPA: Research-based policy and practice. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.
• Hildebrandt, S. A., & Swanson, P. B. (2014). World language teacher candidate performance on edTPA: An exploratory study. Foreign Language Annals, 47, 576-591.
• Scott, S. S., Hildebrandt, S. A., & Edwards, W. A. (2013). Second language learning as perceived by students with disabilities. In C. Sanz & B. Lado (Eds.), Individual differences, L2 development & language program administrators: From theory to application (pp. 171-191). Boston, MA: Heinle.

Hildebrandt’s body of scholarship on teaching and learning has been disseminated across a variety of venues: peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, weblogs, and presentations at numerous local, regional, and international venues.

Hildebrandt has advanced SoTL at ISU by serving as a member of the SoTL Resource Group, a frequent reviewer for and contributor to Gauisus (ISU’s internal SoTL journal), and as a University Research Grant reviewer for the Office of the Cross Endowed Chair in SoTL. Additionally, she served as a mentor to a graduate student in the Certificate of Specialized Instruction in SoTL program.

Erin Mikulec (Ph.D., Purdue University), Associate Professor in the School of Teaching and Learning, is the recipient of the 2018 Dr. John Chizmar & Dr. Anthony Ostrosky Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award. Mikulec has been recognized for her excellence in research in the area of teaching and learning as well as her regular and enthusiastic mentorship of her ISU colleagues in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).

At ISU, SoTL is defined as “the systematic study and/or reflection of our ISU students made public.” Throughout her tenure at ISU, Mikulec has used this definition to guide a great deal of her scholarly work. In doing so, she has studied the impact of new and unique clinical experiences on her students’ learning, refining her teaching in response to her findings. As Mikulec’s SoTL work has consistently focused on historically under-studied topics in the field of SoTL (e.g., out-of-class learning, study abroad), her efforts have helped to build an emerging evidence-base for other academics to apply to their own teaching and learning practice or research. Mikulec’s scholarship on teaching and learning has been disseminated across a variety of venues: peer-reviewed journal articles, a book chapter in a book she edited, blogs, and at numerous local, regional, and international presentations.

Mikulec’s contributions as a SoTL mentor and advocate at ISU are notable. In 2016, Mikulec served as a SoTL Scholar-Mentor in the Office of the Cross Endowed Chair in SoTL. In this capacity, Mikulec served as a co-editor for Gauisus (ISU’s internal SoTL publication), regularly contributed to the SoTL Advocate blog, and assisted in the development of ISU’s first “Go Global with SoTL” mini-grant program. In the last three years, Mikulec has also co-created and co-facilitated a variety of SoTL faculty development workshops and has served as a regular Gauisus reviewer. Recently, she co-developed a project to study the campus-wide impact of study abroad at ISU and will mentor two “new-to-SoTL” faculty colleagues as part of this SoTL grant-funded endeavor.

No award was given this year.

Jennifer Friberg (Ed.D., Illinois State University), an Associate Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders (CSD) at Illinois State University, is the 2015-16 recipient of the Dr. John Chizmar & Dr. Anthony Ostrosky Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Award. She teaches in the area of speech-language pathology, and has published SoTL research based on her experiences with students on topics such as student engagement, diagnostic decision making, and the impact of cross-curricular integration. This SoTL research has been presented at international SoTL conferences such as ISSOTL and EuroSoTL and published in journals such as Perspectives on Issues in Higher Education and Contemporary Issues in Communication Sciences and Disorders. Along with three colleagues from CSD, Friberg was an inaugural recipient of the “Walk the Talk” Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) award at ISU.

Friberg has served as a SoTL Scholar-Mentor at ISU for three years, working closely with the Cross Endowed Chair in SoTL to mentor faculty and students in conducting teaching and learning research, deliver numerous SoTL-focused workshops, develop and edit The SoTL Advocate blog, and present original SoTL work locally, nationally, and internationally. She has served as a co-editor for Evidence-Based Education Briefs and is an editor of Gauisus, the internal SoTL publication at ISU.

Friberg has been a strong advocate for SoTL, co-authoring a position statement on SoTL in her discipline, co-founding a disciplinary SoTL journal, and authoring the first-ever text on SoTL in communication sciences and disorders: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology: Evidence-Based Education. She has served as the chair of the SoTL Committee for the Council of Academic Programs in Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and was the four-year national chair of Issues in Higher Education, a special interest group focused on SoTL within the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. She is a current member of the Advocacy & Outreach committee for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

No award was given this year.

Cheri J. Simonds (Ph.D., University of Oklahoma) is a Professor of Communication at Illinois State University. She has Co-directed Communication as Critical Inquiry for the past seventeen years. She and her colleagues were integrally involved in general education reform at ISU. She teaches in the area of communication education and has published several articles in national peer reviewed journals including Communication Education, Communication Teacher, and The Basic Communication Course Annual.

Throughout her tenure at Illinois State University, she has collaborated with colleagues to develop two lines of research on the Scholarship of Teaching Communication as well as the Scholarship of Learning. In terms of the former, she has published work on classroom management training, speech evaluation training, criterion based assessment, interactive instructional strategies, and authentic portfolio assessment. These efforts have been recognized by the Basic Course Division of the National Communication Association (NCA) in naming ISUs Communication as Critical Inquiry Course as the Inaugural Program of Excellence Award in 2008. In discussing her SoTL scholarship in the Communication discipline, Simonds stated that the link between teaching and learning is communication, a clear justification for her research agenda. In terms of the Scholarship of Learning, she has studied the effects of teacher self-disclosure on Facebook on teacher credibility, student motivation, affective learning, and classroom climate. She has also explored the effects of teacher clarity, immediacy, and credibility on student learning. These efforts have provided opportunities to inform teachers of various disciplines the communication skills needed to be effective teachers.

Simonds has co-authored textbooks on Classroom Communication, Intercultural Communication, and Public Speaking. She is the Outgoing Editor of Communication Teacher, lead author on the NCA Resolution on the Role of Communication in General Education, and Chairs the NCA Task Force on Strengthening the Basic Communication Course. The National Communication Association recently honored her with the Inaugural Basic Communication Course Distinguished Faculty Award.