What is the COESP and What are Our Plans? The COESP is an idea that has been several years in the making but that officially started at the beginning of March this year when I agreed to be the first Director.  In those first 8 weeks, we have been developing our mission and values as guides for future decision-making.  we have also organized a visiting Science T&L Scholar from Sydney Australia who is coming in early May to work with us and participate in the COESP kick-off day on May 10th -- so we've been busy - in addition to teaching, grading and running our research programs. John F. Dawson Director

COESP College of Biological Science Office of Educational Scholarship and Practice

Say what? CO – E – S – P ?

Today’s Talk What is the COESP? Where is the COESP? Who is the COESP? Mission, Values Where is the COESP? Who is the COESP? Generating the Vision Inputs and limits Summary

Our Mission To Support and Promote Evidence-based practice Outcomes Development & Assessment Biology Higher Education Research I have been involved in all of these since I started at Guelph in 2002. There is a synergy here – The educational research I have done in the past has to do with evidence-based teaching practices. Most recently, the research I have done and lead is heavily invoved with LO development and assessment. So, it is through these last two that I have an appreciation and understanding of the modes and practices of higher educational research. One of the factors here is how do you measure these actions?  But we'll be working on that. We've got a great group of people on the steering committee who got to work right away and I am very pleased with our discussions.  Through those discussions, we idenitified some core values right away:

Our Values Inclusive Accessible Responsive Evidence-based 1. inclusive -- want to hear from everyone and to work with everyone 2. responsive -- people need to be heard and we must respond in a timely fashion 3. accessible --  responses have to be useful 4. evidence-based -- responses have to be based in research

Who is the COESP We are US Teaching Collaborating & researching Experiencing the same challenges

Who is the COESP Each is unique: Research specialty Courses we teach Including those who think about and analyze What we teach How we teach How students learn Always been part of who we are

A place to be understood Who is the COESP We want a place for Teaching and Learning activities to come together – we VALUE this Inward and outward place for CBS activities Provide a focus, direction, and support A place to be heard A place to be understood A place to find answers

Associate Dean Academic Where do we fit in CBS? Dean Associate Dean Academic COESP UCC

Who is the COESP? Director Student Staff OpenEd Faculty I’ve talked about who we are – we are us Where we are – in the structure of CBS But what about outside?

What’s out there? COESP PSEER CSAHS

What’s going on in Ontario? www.ouf.ca

What’s going on in Canada? www.u15.ca

Beyond Guelph Biology Offices are rare: Denmark? Reaching out – Ontario Working together Queen’s NSERC lobbying Cnd Soc for Molecular Biosciences – IUBMB Establish Guelph as a leader

Generating Vision Inputs: Our needs Our dreams Resources

Resources $30,000 / year for 3 years People: Other resources Us Steering Committee Staff: Char The Director (me!) Other resources

Outcomes Development & Assessment Common strategy to maintain relationships with students beyond graduation Measure outcomes For internal reporting (IQAP) For promotion / recruiting For career development and networking For fundraising / collaboration

Biology Higher Education Research A Biology Education Research Hub Invite those who are interested and want to do this kind of research Share expertise and ideas Share challenges Start this summer

Evidence-based Practice A CBS strategy to address teaching & learning challenges and needs Web-site Blogs Workshops Seminars Research Hub (Aspire program)

Guelph Leadership Make resources available to others Promote our efforts Reward & Recognize Excellence Coordinate: Internal efforts for LEF, SOTL funding External efforts for funding and support

Valuing Teaching Meet needs and challenges with solutions from higher education research Demonstrate the value of scholarly teaching While advancing biology higher education research Performing and producing scholarly teaching research

Summary Who is the COESP? We are US Where is the COESP? Here! What’s the mission? To Support and Promote What are the COESP’s values? Inclusive, accessible, responsive, evidence-based What is the vision? Grassroots values, growing research, leadership