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The most basic definition of scholarship of
teaching and learning that I use
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is that it is faculty undertaking
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systematic inquiry of learning in his
or her own classroom.
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Every time
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a professor or a teacher teaches a
course
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they're engaged in an experiment; the
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syllabus is a hypothesis that if I teach
the class
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this way, if I teach this material in this
order, and if students do these things
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then I hypothesize that something will
happen. Students will learn,
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they'll grow, they'll benefit, and
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that's how we play out every single time
we teach.
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What's missing is that that final step
of what an experimental mode would be,
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which is this is my hypothesis, this is
the unfolding,
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and now I have to look very closely at the
results and reexamine my hypothesis.
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So that loop closing happens
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always in some informal way -- that didn't
work, I'll never do that again,
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that was great, I'm always good on that
day, students love this --
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but we often don't undertake that loop
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in a very systematic way, so for me the
scholarship for teaching and learning is
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about taking that last step
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in the hypothesis testing that every
act of teaching is
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and picking some dimension, looking at it
systematically,
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looking sensitively and rigorously at the
evidence of student learning,
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and asking if the assumptions that are
going into this learning design are
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correct and if there are things that I might do differently.
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The key characteristic of SoTL work for
me is that it's a form of inquiry.
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Some people like the term research, some
people prefer inquiry.
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It is certainly based on notions of
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reflective practice and reflecting on your
teaching; that's the starting point.
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For me personally, SoTL involves not
just an inquiry into your teaching
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practices, but it has to have focus on
students' learning.
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So student learning is the actual
focus of inquiry in SoTL,
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thats that's my personal understanding
of it. A definition that I like
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is sort of as follows... It's
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faculty bringing their habits and skills
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as scholars to their work as teachers.
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So habits of asking questions, gathering
evidence of all different kinds,
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drawing conclusions or raising new
questions,
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and bringing what they learn through
that to
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the thing they were looking at in the
first place, which is students' learning --
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and their own teaching, of course.
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So it's a kind of cycle, but it's
essentially
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behaving as they do as a scholar in other
settings and bringing that to their
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work
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as teachers. The key characteristics
of SoTL really
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are bringing your research to your
teaching in a systematic way
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so that what you plan to do for your
students
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you carry out and you test and you figure
out
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exactly their response and what might make their learning better.
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So it's about really addressing
your teaching
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with the research knowledge that you
have. In the root metaphor
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of scholarship of teaching and learning
is inquiry,
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and that's what differentiates
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that kind of teaching from regular
teaching is that
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you are continually asking a question...
It doesn't have to be a cosmic question
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about whether
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education in some theoretical way is
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working as a model, but it's more a
question
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that could be relayed simply to, "Are
students achieving what I hoped for,
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or what they hoped for?" And so the central
feature is that you're asking a question.
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What that means is that
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when you're doing scholarship of teaching and learning, you are looking for an answer,
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and that brings into play a second
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key idea, which is that involves evidence.
Some
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scholarship of teaching and learning work is purely conceptual, but much of it is
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asking a question, observing something
to see if
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you can find an answer to that question,
and then framing what you learn from it.
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The key characteristics of SoTL have
probably changed over the past 20 years
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since the
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term entered the vocabulary in
higher education.
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To me the key element
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is for faculty and
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those who are working with them to look
closely and critically at student
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learning.
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But in fact you can elaborate that
because it
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involves what you do with that knowledge.
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First of all, to look closely and critically,
it helps to have a really good question,
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so having a question would be the first
step, and its typically
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the way in which people enter the
scholarship of teaching and learning,
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by thinking about something that
troubles them in their classroom or
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something that pleases them,
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something they'd like to know better. So
it's developing that
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sense of... inquiry
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in what you do in the classroom, or as
we'll probably talk a little later
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about in your program or some larger
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unit in which you are a part.
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So asking that question is very important
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and then you get to devising ways of
answering a question.
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How you go about answering that
question -- that is one
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where it's very helpful to have
colleagues to
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work with and think about. Sometimes
you can
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answer your question just by a careful
look at student work for your
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class, but sometimes you have to be
thinking about you question before you
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even devise and
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design your assignments for your class so
that you'll have work that will
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more readily answer it. Many
people go further than that
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and they look at... they do some other things too --
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interview students, they'll do surveys,
they'll do other things, and...
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kinda depends what you asked and what
you want to know
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and what you're comfortable with
methodologically.
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Frequently taking comfort in
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procedures you're familiar with from
your discipline.
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So there you have a question, you have a
way of going about
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answering it, and for some people, the
most important part
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is what you do with that information and
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that is where you
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redesign, reboot... your course or
assignment,
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an assessment, or even a whole program
based
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on many things that you're learning
about
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what your students are thinking and what they are doing.
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And for some people the really
critical
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piece after that is going public with what you are learning.
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We've tried to
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think of going public frequently in
programs for the scholarship of teaching
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and learning
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in a wide... with a wide range of...
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speaking with your colleagues about it
at the most informal level
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all the way up to publishing
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papers or books,
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as a result of the whole program of work, but
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people shouldn't start the scholarship
of teaching and learning
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with that as their only idea about what
it means to public.
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There are many ways in between that are
fruitful
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and that help move the discussion about
teaching and learning forward.
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Key characteristics of SoTL work...
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I think focus in some part, anyway,
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not just on the nature of the work but
who is doing the work.
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I have been asked a few times about the
difference between educational research,
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which we've been doing for
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centuries, and SoTL, which appears to be
a relatively new thing on the landscape.
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My answer is it's not so much about
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necessarily the research questions or
even some of the methods, but it is about
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who -- who's doing the work, and when SoTL
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is going well, the number of people doing
the work is greatly expanded,
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the range of people, the diversity of
people is greatly expanded,
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and what that's supposed to do is increase
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the impact of the work, because more of it
is being conducted, as we might say,
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at the coal face. I think the key
characteristics for SoTL work
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begin with asking interesting
questions, and those interesting
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questions
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typically but not always come from a
challenge that
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someone is having with their teaching or
with their students' learning
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or the interface between the two.
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So I think asking those interesting
questions
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begins with the characteristics of
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good SoTL work, and then working out a
methodology, a way
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of gathering answers to the question --
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the evidence from the students, the
teachers' reflections --
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all the relevant evidence... Finding a
design and methodology that not only
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reflects
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the nature of the question but
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in many ways, sometimes more
importantly,
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the nature of the expertise of the
researcher or researchers.
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Now I know that's a slightly contested
response because some people say that
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the
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the research design and methodology
should come specifically from the
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question and the question alone,
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but to avoid
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what some have called amateur work in SoTL,
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I think we have to bring our expertise
to the table, and
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I think there's plenty room in SoTL
for a variety of ways to answer
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questions,
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and so I think a methodology grounded
in...
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a methodology for answering questions
grounded in a question
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and the researchers' expertise,
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and then finely, I think a key
characteristic would be
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going public in some way -- sharing the
findings, whether they're positive or
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negative findings, whether I found
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that my students' learned greatly or
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revealed many misconceptions that make me have to go back to the starting point.
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Whatever those findings are,
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sharing them publicly beyond just one's
institution,
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to a larger audience, to
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build knowledge on whatever the question
is because chances are many people have
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asked the same question or wondered the
same thing or dealt with the same
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challenge
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but to build on that conversation, to
build that knowledge,
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to continue the conversation,
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and to enter that kind of broader
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audience beyond one's institution. So
for me
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those three characteristics are
essential for SoTL:
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beginning with an interesting question,
having a methodology that's grounded in
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the question
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and the researcher's expertise, and then
going public in some
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broad way. I think of SoTL
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in four ways. It's a perspective on
teaching and learning;
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it's a set of practices that we use to
investigate teaching and learning;
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it's a product that comes about from that
investigation;
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and it's also something that has an
impact. So
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I would start by saying that the most
important part of
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SoTL work for me is the fact that it's
a perspective;
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it says that teaching and learning are
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areas where we can ask intelligent,
consequential
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questions. We start there, I don't think
we can go very far wrong.
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When you're doing it yourself, two things
happen.
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One is that you get to look at the
questions that you really care about.
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So I'm often looking when I'm
reading people's articles
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at whether what they're talking about is
useful to me. Can I apply it? Can I
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adapt it?
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Can it inform my teaching?
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But when I'm asking my own questions, it's
a much more direct process.
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The other thing that happens when you do
your own
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is that you have to think much more
carefully
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about what I think student learning
looks like
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because you have to define it.
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You have to look at the work that
somebody did and say
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"yeah that's what learning looks like,
right there," and that process I think
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makes me
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a better teacher in ways that reading
other people's articles doesn't,
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because it gets me closer to it.
