By Steven Krolak
(NEW ALBANY, Ind.)–Dr. Sau Hou Chang, professor of education, has received the prestigious P.A. Mack Fellowship for 2019-2020 granted by Indiana University’s Mack Center for Inquiry on Teaching and Learning, administered by the Faculty Academy on Excellence in Teaching (FACET).
The Mack Fellowship aims to promote and enhance the community of IU faculty engaged in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).
It will enable Chang to further probe instructional strategies, specifically the use of testing and interteaching to promote student learning.
Chang’s proposal builds on the success of these two instructional strategies. Taking tests has been shown to enhance memory and improve performance (the so-called “testing effect”). Interteaching is a more fluid conversation between two people–usually students–that identifies difficult-to-understand topics, helping the instructor focus on areas of greatest need. Interteaching has also been shown to produce higher test scores at the college level.
Chang’s project will combine the two, to determine if interteaching might enhance the testing effect and make testing even more beneficial to student learning.
Students in an educational psychology course taught by Chang will be the subjects of the study.
“Any instructor would benefit from strategies promoting students’ learning,” Chang said. “Learning how interteaching and testing effects can be incorporated into a course would be helpful if an instructor would like to try these strategies.”
For Chang, the fellowship is a recognition of her work in the scholarship of teaching and learning, and her long experience in implementing innovative instructional strategies such as the flipped classroom.
“It’s an honor and an encouragement,” Chang said. “It confirms my belief that research informs teaching.”