Review of The University and its Disciplines: Teaching and Learning Within and Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries (original) (raw)
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Connecting discipline scholars with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is accepted as an essential part of professional academic practice across the higher education sector irrespective of discipline. To connect meaningfully with teaching practice, SoTL needs to be translated by the discipline scholar and narratives related to the discipline context constructed. Previous work on disciplinary diversity suggests that there is a need to take a more grounded approach to the development of discipline-based educational scholarship. How SoTL is defined is critical to how SoTL is interpreted within discipline contexts and some of the numerous models and definitions of SoTL transcend disciplinary boundaries, but there is no single agreed definition of what is meant by SoTL. This paper reviews some of the models of scholarly teaching and raises some questions about how the links between pedagogical theory and discipline teaching practice are made by discipline scholars. We advocate that by providing discipline scholars with ways to map and then collectively view their practices within disciplines that this is likely to provide information essential for exploring SoTL in each discipline and reconciling SoTL with academic disciplines.
Collected Essays on Learning and Teaching, 2011
Over the past two decades, the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) has received increased attention in academe. Broadly conceptualized as an area which combines the experience of teaching with the scholarship of research, and the dissemination of this knowledge such that the broader academic community can benefit from this scholarly product, SoTL has been regarded as a primary means to increase the quality and value of teaching in higher education. This paper explores five challenges which contribute to the dilemma of faculty engagement in research on teaching and learning: limited expertise, the graduate studies culture, terminology (SoTL is widely misunderstood), reward and recognition, and time constraints. Responses to these challenges are presented in hopes of contributing to a positive dialogue for change, where faculty engagement in research on teaching and learning not only continues to grow, but becomes firmly grounded as an essential scholarly activity within highe...
Teaching and Learning in the Disciplines: An HEA-Funded Project. Summary Report
2015
We are delighted to share the findings from this research study. The contribution of participating learned societies, professional bodies and their members adds an important insight into the key teaching and learning issues faced in higher education through a crucial disciplinary lens. Supporting high quality innovative teaching and learning in the disciplines is a core objective of the HEA's mission and we are excited to be working closely with a whole range of learned societies and professional bodies to respond to the issues identified.
The History Learning Project " Decodes " a Discipline: The Union of Teaching and Epistemology
Thirty years of the scholarship of teaching and learning have provided a plethora of books about teaching, containing potential assessments, advice about course design, teaching tips, and prescriptions. Much of this work, which arises from practical classroom experience, useful as it may be, treats symptoms—specific student difficulties—rather than diagnosing the underlying illness, so that there is no framework for applying solutions. The " Decoding the Disciplines " (" Decoding ") methodology provides such a framework; it has led us first to identify and then classify student difficulties or " bottlenecks " in history. These turned out to be closely related to the epis-temology of the discipline. While we do not expect that most of our students will become historians, our charge as college teachers is to teach students to think historically, whatever they go on to do, and this means that they must understand the ways of knowing of our discipline. Our teaching has been radically altered by this insight. We have found that the disconnect between epistemology and teaching is standard in many other disciplines. If we are to change student learning through our efforts, we will need to delve into the heart of this darkness. " Decoding the Disciplines, " a methodology developed by Joan Middendorf and David Pace as part of the Freshman Learning Project (Pace and Middendorf 2004), arose from the realization that there is a disciplinary unconscious, automatic moves learned tacitly by experts. 1 Teachers expect, however, that students will be able to make these moves equally automatically , without being told to do so, much less how or why they should. Pace and Middendorf developed an interviewing process that helps faculty see moves that are so deeply ingrained that they are invisible, and render these moves explicit. The methodology is a series of steps, beginning with the identification of the " bottleneck " the teacher is concerned with and ending with sharing the results, which we are doing here (see table 5.1).
Journal of Research Practice, 2007
In this article we attempt to complicate traditional--and, we argue, limited and exclusionary--definitions of interdisciplinarity as the bringing into dialogue of established disciplines without questioning the parameters and practices of those disciplines. We propose that interdisciplinarity instead might mean teaching and learning among, between, and in the midst of those of innate or learned capacities--not only college faculty but also students and staff. To illustrate this more radical iteration of interdisciplinarity, we draw on a range of definitions of the key terms, “discipline” and “faculty,” and we offer a case study of a workshop we co-facilitated in which we brought differently positioned individuals together to engage in the educational process and the production of knowledge. We hope that this discussion contributes to expanding the notions and practices of interdisciplinarity.
Connecting discipline scholars with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is accepted as an essential part of professional academic practice across the higher education sector irrespective of discipline. To connect meaningfully with teaching practice, SoTL needs to be translated by the discipline scholar and narratives related to the discipline context constructed. Previous work on disciplinary diversity suggests that there is a need to take a more grounded approach to the development of discipline-based educational scholarship. How SoTL is defined is critical to how SoTL is interpreted within discipline contexts and some of the numerous models and definitions of SoTL transcend disciplinary boundaries, but there is no single agreed definition of what is meant by SoTL. This paper reviews some of the models of scholarly teaching and raises some questions about how the links between pedagogical theory and discipline teaching practice are made by discipline scholars. We advocate that by providing discipline scholars with ways to map and then collectively view their practices within disciplines that this is likely to provide information essential for exploring SoTL in each discipline and reconciling SoTL with academic disciplines.
International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2008
Integrating research and teaching in research-intensive universities is an unresolved issue as we head into the 21st century. While studies conclude that the early years of the undergraduate curriculum should be more intellectually exciting, few universities have implemented approaches such as research-led learning. The conceptual shift that is necessary involves harmonisation of the collegial and developmental cultures. Of the forces that support convergence, focusing on the curriculum and learning design may offer the best potential for connecting students and academics to knowledge communities and linking the research, teaching and scholarship missions. An important element in transforming the research-intensive university is recognising the importance of flexible and equitable reward systems 'in order to promote an overall balance in the relative importance of research and undergraduate education' (Gray, Froh, & Diamond, 1992, p.15).