Mark Potter Mary Alice Sawaya

 Workshop participants will  Identify how the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) relates to the standard categories of teaching and scholarship.  Assess the value and benefits of doing SoTL.  Generate ideas for possible SoTL projects.  Identify the range of decisions that enter into a SoTL research design.

 No one single definition  Interest sparked by Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered (1990) in which he identifies the “Scholarship of Teaching.”  Most SoTL resides within the disciplines; qualities and standards will be determined by combination of discipline standards and local policies and cultures.

 Joint statement defining SoTL by the Carnegie Foundation and the AAHE: SoTL is “problem posing about an issue of teaching or learning, study of the problem through methods appropriate to the disciplinary epistemologies, applications of results to practice, communication of results, self-reflection, and peer review.”

 High agreement among SoTL experts with the following statements:  Those who practice the scholarship of teaching carefully design ways to examine, interpret, and share learning about teaching.  Engaging in classroom research is important but not sufficient for the scholarship of teaching. (Kreber, 2001)

 When asked to define SoTL, most “regular” faculty/staff related it to effective and good teaching; the experts, in comparison, associated the concept with ideas about peer review and scholarship. (Kreber, 2003)

 Good teaching  Scholarly teaching  Assessment

 Question for discussion: How do SoTL and assessment compare?

 What are some benefits that can accrue to teaching faculty engaged in SoTL?  Are there reasons to be cautious?

 Rethink the notion of “problems” in teaching.

 Prompt for reflection and discussion: Think about a teaching and/or learning issue, problem, or question that you have about your students, a course, an assignment, a pedagogical strategy, your program, etc. Briefly state that issue, problem, or question as a question(s).

 Designing your study will involve a number of necessary choices and steps:  Review of literature on the topic.  Research methods and strategies.  Ethical considerations (IRB review).  Timeframe.  Mary Alice Sawaya will describe the steps and choices that she undertook in her project.

 McKinney, K. (2007). Enhancing Learning Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.  ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) Database.  Academic Search Premier (EBSCO).  List of SoTL journals at

 International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning:  Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: