Welcome to my scholarship dossier. To the left are links to my scholarly contributions. I have also listed the memberships and awards/grants that I have received. Below, I provide an overview of my scholarship activity.
I trained as a research biochemist in the field of lipid pathogenesis. Specifically, my doctoral dissertation from the University of British Columbia considered the impact of maternal nutrition on perinatal lipid metabolism. My goal was to determine the biochemical mechanism by which maternal diet seemed to imprint the ability of the offspring to metabolize cholesterol. I studied rats, but of course, the aim was to understand the diversity in the human population of the propensity to develop atherosclerosis. At that time we referred to this as maternal imprinting. Today, it would be understood to involve epigenetics. My entire thesis was published in international journals with the last portion of data being published in 2001. These papers are still being cited today (Berding et al., 2015; Guardamagna & Cagliero, 2016; Larsen et al., 2011; Ontsouka & Albrecht, 2014; Tupoac-Yupanqui, Vasques, Villarroel, & Dunner, 2013).
My research focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). In 2010 I accepted the appointment of Associate Dean (Teaching) at Augustana with the goal of determining how to enable students to articulate their learning and skills developed as a student. My former Dean, Roger Epp and I were both concerned that students seemed to have difficulty articulating to potential employers and professional programs their learning outcomes from their Augustana liberal arts and science degree. Dean Epp resorted to supplying students with a letter of introduction from himself that articulated for them their learning and skills gained while enrolled at Augustana. One of my tasks, as Associate Dean, was to determine how to enable our students to do this for themselves. To this effect, I led the development and implementation of a pilot program that tested the efficacy of using an e-portfolio assignment to help students reflect on their learning and skill development: a form of metacognition or meta-learning (Fink, 2016).
With the aid of Augustana’s Committee on the Learning Environment, and a small group of faculty, that pilot study resulted in a recent publication that indicated that student learning outcomes were positively impacted by the e-portfolio assignment (Haave, 2016). The e-portfolio pilot demonstrated that without specific prompts many students are not aware of the skills they are learning in their undergraduate program nor are they integrating their learning between courses, across disciplines or among the academic terms: students tend to approach their education as if their courses were simply bricks to collect in a corner without doing the work of using them to build an integrated and robust knowledge structure (Ambrose, Bridges, DiPietro, Lovett, & Norman, 2010; Smith, 1998). I am using the prompts developed from the e-portfolio pilot (Haave, 2014) to investigate whether facilitating students’ development of their learning philosophy may positively impact both their specific learning outcomes (the particular course marks and grade) and general learning outcomes (intellectual development). This study was supported for the first year by my being awarded a McCalla Professorship in 2015. The research will continue through to 2019 with the research grant I received in 2016 from our university’s Teaching and Learning Enhancement Fund. Initial results suggest that the learning philosophy assignment can positively impact students’ intellectual development and course marks but that the effect is inconsistent. We are currently trying to determine the factors that impact the efficacy of the learning philosophy assignment. My preliminary results have been presented and published; please see my list of publications and conference presentations.
In addition to my scholarly work on students’ meta-learning, I have also examined the impact that undergraduate research can have on students’ development as a student. My study with Dr. Audet found that earlier experiences with undergraduate research hasten students’ academic development (Haave & Audet, 2013). One of my goals as a scholarly teacher is to implement instructional strategies that provide research opportunities to undergraduates in typical courses in addition to the gold standard of one-on-one faculty-mentored theses and projects (Harde & Haave, 2012). This is one reason for my implementation of team-based learning in the courses I teach in which in-class applications of course material can be developed around research questions and data analysis within the particular discipline.
Augustana’s biology capstone course, AUBIO 411 – History and Theory of Biology, is a unique educational experience for biology students, using the history and philosophy of biology as a framework for engaging students in metacognition of their undergraduate biology education. However, following a literature search, I could not find information indicating whether or not such a course was common. I located a couple of individual examples of biology capstone courses and suggestions for the design of biology capstone courses but no published information on the degree to which biology capstone courses have been implemented and the content and skills taught in such a course. Thus, in 2014 I conducted an online survey of biology degree programs in Canada and the USA presenting the data at the annual meeting of the Association of College and University Biology Educators at the University of Portland in October 2014. The survey reports the prevalence and nature of capstone courses of biology degree programs in North America filling this gap in our curricular knowledge of biology degree programs. The capstone course that I designed for Augustana’s biology major is indeed relatively unique. The capstone survey was recently published (Haave, 2016).
I complement my pedagogical research with reflective scholarship that integrates my teaching practice with the published literature. The articles published in The Teaching Professor and the National Teaching and Learning Forum have been well-received and republished in the online newsletters Faculty Focus and Tomorrow’s Professor. In addition, while editor of Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching I served as both journal manager (I ensured the site was running and responded to website related questions) and senior editor (enforce the theme of the volume and ensure the collective wisdom of the board is considered when questions regarding suitability of manuscripts arise in addition to shouldering my share of editing). As journal manager, I coordinated our copyeditors, proofreaders, and editorial assistant, with myself acting as layout editor. As senior editor I edited manuscripts, shepherding them through peer review, coordinate our editorial board, and ensure the final galley proof is ready by the publication deadline.
I plan to continue working in the scholarship of teaching and learning by investigating the nature of students’ meta-learning. Can meta-learning be further facilitated through in-class collaborative activities or sharing through social media? We know that active learning improves student learning outcomes (Freeman et al., 2014). We now need to better understand how active learning does this so that we are able to determine what the best practices are for teaching and learning (Dolan, 2015). I plan to continue contributing to this larger body of scholarship.
Literature cited
Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How does the way students organize knowledge affect their learning? In How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching (pp. 40–65). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Berding, K., Makarem, P., Hance, B., Axel, A. M. D., Nolan, V., Buddington, K. K., & Buddington, R. K. (2015). Responses of preterm pigs to an oral fluid supplement during parenteral nutrition. Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, 40(7), 934-943.
Dolan, E. L. (2015). Biology education research 2.0. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 14(4), 1–2.
Fink, L. D. (2016). Five high-impact teaching practices: A list of possibilities. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 9, 3–18.
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 111(23), 8410–5.
Guardamagna, O., & Cagliero, P. (2016). Lipid metabolism in the human fetus development. In N. Bhattacharya & P. G. Stubblefield (Eds.), Human fetal growth and development: First and second trimesters (pp. 183–195). Springer International Publishing.
Haave, N. (2014). Developing students’ learning philosophies. The Teaching Professor, 28(4), 1,4.
Haave, N. (2016). E-portfolios rescue biology students from a poorer final exam result: Promoting student metacognition. Bioscene: Journal of College Biology Teaching, 42(1), 8–15.
Haave, N., & Audet, D. (2013). Evidence in support of removing boundaries to undergraduate research experience. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 6, 105–110.
Harde, R., & Haave, N. (2012). Wider horizons: Fostering a culture of undergraduate research. Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 5, 39–43.
Larsen, L., Rosenstierne, M. W., Gaarn, L. W., Bagge, A., Pedersen, L., Dahmcke, C. M., … Dalgaard, L. T. (2011). Expression and localization of microRNAs in perinatal rat pancreas: Role of miR-21 in regulation of cholesterol metabolism. PloS ONE, 6(10), e25997.
Ontsouka, E. C., & Albrecht, C. (2014). Cholesterol transport and regulation in the mammary gland. Journal of Mammary Gland Biology and Neoplasia, 19(1), 43–58.
Smith, B. L. (1998). Curricular structures for cumulative learning. In J. N. Gardner, G. Van der Veer, & Associates (Eds.), The senior year experience: Facilitating integration, reflection, closure, and transition (pp. 81–94). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers.
Tupoac-Yupanqui, I., Vasques, L., Villarroel, M., & Dunner, S. (2013). Fatty acid food source affects expression of genes involved in the stress response in tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus). Journal of Biological Research-Thessaloniki, 19, 30–37.