A significant portion of my inquiry projects fall under the umbrella of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), and the Center for Engaged Learning’s research seminars often serve as entry points into SoTL for faculty and staff from across the disciplines. Although Ernest Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate advocated for SoTL in 1990, SoTL remains a new inquiry path for many faculty/academic staff. We host a growing number of web resources, including videos, on the Center’s website to help newcomers find their footing in this important category of scholarship.
We also link to or reference other helpful SoTL resources, and I’m thrilled to see two new SoTL texts available in the coming months.
First, Katie Linder has created an online course, SoTL by Design, available June 1st. SoTL by Design walks participants through designing SoTL projects, from framing a question to data collection and analysis to sharing the project. The course includes a print workbook and pricing packages for 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, and 26 licenses, supporting individual professional development or a SoTL community of practice.
Second, Nancy Chick edited SoTL in Action: Illuminating Critical Moments of Practice, available from Stylus Publishing in September 2018. The collection includes chapters on asking meaningful questions, reviewing the relevant extant literature, aligning research questions and methods (with multiple chapters on specific types of methods), and going public with SoTL. Full disclosure, I wrote one of the chapters, “Writing SoTL: Going Public for an Extended Audience,” but I can’t wait for the book’s release so that I can read the other chapters.
SoTL’s traction in higher education is growing, and these new resources will help scholars find their own path within this category of scholarship. Of course, if you’re new to SoTL, I also recommend attending a SoTL conference; the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) annual conferences and the SoTL Symposium sponsored by Mount Royal University are two friendly conference communities.
Boyer, E. L. (1990). Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.