Modeling the scholarship of teaching through four family policy assignments

This article describes the scholarship of teaching and discusses how it can be used in a family policy class. An Internet scavenger hunt, the use of weekly news articles for discussing family policy, a field trip to the state capitol, and a research project are the assignments described. Each assignment is followed by a discussion on how content, process, and premise reflections, components of the scholarship of teaching, can be used to evaluate and refine student achievement as well as the teacher's effectiveness skills. Rubrics for evaluating the assignments are included in the appendices. This article is designed to be helpful to faculty who teach family policy and may be adapted by other teaching professionals for a variety of disciplines.