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The Evolution of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

By jmoore | Published January 14, 2014

by Jessie L. Moore

As Lee Shulman notes in the video below, one exciting characteristic of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is that it has evolved. It has a rich history sparked by a core group of scholars and extended by an international community.

Where did SoTL start? Briefly…

Ernest Boyer gave a name to the practice in his 1990 publication, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, but SoTL’s founding scholars already were actively engaged in this type of research. Russ Edgerton’s, Pat Hutchings’, and Lee Shulman’s names are prominent, for example, in 1980s issues of the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) Bulletin.

Many of these scholars continued their work under the auspices of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching in the 1990s (where Mary Taylor Huber and Ernest Boyer, among others, were already active), and the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning launched in 1998. The Carnegie Foundation continues to be a nexus for SoTL publications within the United States.

Each geographic context for SoTL has its own historical evolution, and many global regions have their own professional organizations devoted to SoTL. With the launch of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in 2004, SoTL scholars made a conscientious choice to build connections among these international pockets of teaching and learning research.

Want to learn more about SoTL’s past? View the video embedded below to hear Dan Bernstein (University of Kansas), Mary Taylor Huber (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching), Pat Hutchings (Gonzaga University), Gary Poole (University of British Columbia), and Joanna Renc-Roe (Central European University, Budapest) discuss the history of the scholarship of teaching and learning.

 

Jessie L. Moore (@jessielmoore) is the Associate Director of the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University and associate professor of Professional Writing & Rhetoric in the Department of English.

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Sparking a Cultural Shift in Higher Education

By jmoore | Published January 9, 2014

by Jessie L. Moore

Questions about the value of higher education and governmental focus on its costs continue to filter into discussions about colleges and universities. From Our Underachieving Colleges (Derek Bok, 2006) to Academically Adrift (Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, 2011) to news stories around the globe (for example), higher education’s status quo is being called into question.

As Robert J. Thompson, Jr. writes in the introduction to Changing the Conversation about Higher Education, “the current conversation about undergraduate education is dominated by: criticism of the effectiveness of educational practices and the quality of student learning, debates about the validity and utility of assessment approaches, and conflict regarding the locus of responsibility for accountability” (2013, pp. 1-2).

Fortunately, a growing number of scholars are recognizing the potential of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) to change campus cultures about student learning. Changing the Conversation, for example, features three-year projects supported by a Teagle Foundation and Spencer Foundation partnership to foster “a culture of experimentation and evidence for undergraduate education” (emphasis original). Thompson describes the project’s focus on research universities as a conscientious decision to change the conversation about undergraduate learning at the institutions that prepare future faculty.

The Center for Engaged Learning’s research seminars promote a similar goal by supporting multi-institutional research on focused engaged learning topics. The Center accepts applications from higher education scholars around the globe who want to investigate, assess, and improve higher education’s support for student learning around high-impact practices.

Collectively, these types of research initiatives illustrate an attempt to shift campus cultures, previewing Lee Shulman’s vision for SoTL as a cultural norm in higher education:

 

Jessie L. Moore (@jessielmoore) is the Associate Director of the Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University and associate professor of Professional Writing & Rhetoric in the Department of English.

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