Examining the Focus of SoTL Literature—Teaching and Learning? (original) (raw)
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Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
International Journal of Current Advanced Research , 2024
This study starts with the widely held beliefs that increasing instruction does not always translate into students learning more, and that universities prefer to prioritise research over instruction. The notion of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) has been selected by the authors to address issues pertaining to teaching and learning. The paper discusses the history, relevance, features, and models of SoTL. In addition, it elaborates on best practices, SoTL-related frameworks, and its ramifications. SoTL refers to a methodical examination of a problem related to teaching and learning that is shared for evaluation, communication, and potentially some kind of action that modifies what is done in the classroom. Boyer’s famous book Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate (1990) marked the official beginning of SoTL. SoTL practitioners are more likely to encourage in-depth learning in their pupils. Learning partnerships, communal property, artistic expression, and a certain level of “going meta” are characteristics of SoTL. There are two proposed SoTL models: the practice-focused model by Trigwell and Shale (2004) and the nine components of SoTL by Kreber and Cranton (2000). The spectrum of researchers across the entire continuum, from classroom inquiry to serious educational research, is made possible by the principles of good practice. The frameworks associated with SoTL include Discipline-Based Educational Research, Decoding the Disciplines Approach, Signature Pedagogies, 4M framework, and Professional Societies for Teaching and Learning. The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), which is based on inquiry and engagement, reframes teaching as a continuous, intellectual process with a focus on enhancing student learning. The paper’s conclusion is that it’s critical to recall that higher education’s teaching across disciplines is just as varied as the subjects themselves.
The themes of the 2010 London SoTL Conference addressed issues that were at the core of the SoTL community’s reflections on its purpose and progress. The issues they raised have gradually emerged as problematic, and therefore worthy of debate and enquiry, in recent years across the sector. Expanding the notion of SoTL beyond the confines of the classroom and across the boundaries of the discipline has brought to the fore the following questions: • Are SoTL methodologies theoretically informed and how? • Is theory a meaningful area of concern for SoTL? • Is disciplinarity a stumbling block for SoTL? • What are the challenges of interdisciplinarity for SoTL? • Can SoTL travel beyond English-speaking countries and how? • Does SoTL effectively inform new pedagogies and how? • Do HE institutions value SoTL and how? • Do ‘quality conceptions’ of SoTL and the concern for ‘scientific’ rigour and measurability restrict the SoTL span? • Is SoTL an effective instrument to improve student learning? • Do SoTL activities develop critical learning in faculty and students? • What are the most appropriate pedagogies for criticality? • What are the characteristics of a SoTL culture? • How do departmental and institutional cultures impact on SoTL? • What are the main benefits for students of SoTL approaches to practice? • What is the impact of macro-policies (e.g. Bologna, Accreditation in the USA)?
The authors investigated key paradigms driving contemporary SoTL research by analysing a sample of 84 SoTL articles published in two, highly ranked education journals. The authors identified the paradigm underpinning each article by looking at the stated or implied intent of the article’s authors, the drivers of their research (axiology), the nature of the knowledge/understanding developed from their research (epistemology), the literature and methods used, and the outcomes of their work. As a result of this exercise, the Neo-Positivist Inductive Mode emerged as the dominant paradigm in both journals, accounting for 60 percent of the papers in the combined sample. These findings are discussed in terms of their application to future SoTL research.
Journal of Education, 2015
The relationship between education research and the scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) is still debated, while a distinction has been made between scholarly teaching and SOTL. This study compares and contrasts two programmes of work that took place in a particular 2nd year engineering course, both led by the author. The first programme was an educational research project investigating student learning in the course. The second programme was a period of teaching, leading to some SOTL output. Analysis of the knowledge drawn on in teaching, confirms that good university teaching is not a direct application of research findings but rather draws on a broad and largely tacit practical base of knowledge. The article also offers a deliberation on whether it is productive to maintain the distinction between education research and SOTL.