Provides a state-of-the-field review of recent SoTL scholarship

Pivotal to the transformation of higher education in the 21st Century is the nature of pedagogy and its role in advancing the aims of various stakeholders. This book brings together pre-eminent scholars to critically assess teaching and learning issues that cut across most disciplines. Systematically explored throughout the book is the avowed linkage between classroom teaching and motivation, learning, and performance outcomes in students.

The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) began primarily as a discipline-based movement, committed to exploring the signature pedagogical and learning styles of each discipline within higher education, with little exchange across disciplines. As the field has developed, new questions have arisen concerning cross-disciplinary comparison and learning in multidisciplinary settings This volume by a stellar group of experts provides a state-of-the-field review of recent SoTL scholarship within a range of disciplines and offers a stimulating discussion of critical issues related to interdisciplinarity in teaching, learning, and SoTL research.

When the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) emerged, it often concentrated on individual faculty practice in one classroom; it is now, however, increasingly common to find work in SoTL focused more broadly. SoTL studies may engage with a cluster of courses, a program, a particular population of students, a pedagogical approach, or a field—all of which are represented in the essays collected here by authors from a diverse array of institutions and nations. This volume features examples of SoTL research conducted in, and applied to, a variety of contexts and disciplines, offering a theoretical framework for an expanded vision of SoTL—one that moves beyond the individual classroom.

This is a book for anyone who has ever considered engaging in the scholarship of teaching and learning – known familiarly as SoTL – and needs a better understanding of what it is, and how to engage in it. The authors describe how to create a SoTL project, its implications for promotion and tenure, and how it fosters:* Increased satisfaction and fulfillment in teaching* Improved student learning* Increased productivity of scholarly publication* Collaboration with colleagues across disciplines* Contributing to a growing and important body of literatureThis guide provides prospective SoTL scholars with the necessary background information, foundational theory, tools, resources, and methodology to develop their own SoTL projects, taking the reader through the five stages of the process: Generating a research question; Designing the study; Collecting the data; Analyzing the data; and Presenting and publishing your SoTL project. Each stage is illustrated by examples of actual SoTL studies, and is accompanied by worksheets to help the reader refine ideas and map out his or her next steps. The process and worksheets are the fruit of the successful SoTL workshops the authors have offered at their institution for many years. SoTL differs from scholarly and reflective teaching in that it not only involves questioning one’s teaching or a teaching strategy, but also formally gathering and exploring evidence, researching the literature, refining and testing practices, and finally going public. The purpose of SoTL is not just to make an impact on student learning, but through formal, peer-reviewed communication, to contribute to the larger knowledge base on teaching and learning. While the roots of SoTL go back some 30 years, it was Ernest Boyer in his classic Scholarship Reconsidered who made the case for the parity of the scholarships of integration, of discovery, of application, and of scholarship of teaching as vital to the health of higher education. Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff ’s subsequent Scholarship Assessed articulated the quality standards for SoTL, since when the field has burgeoned with the formation of related associations, a proliferation of conferences, the launching of numerous journals, and increasing recognition and validation by institutions.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning unleashes great potential in librarianship, and academic librarians are ideal candidates for participation in SoTL projects: We're inquisitive, passionate, and we care about student success. The Grounded Instruction Librarian can provide innovative ideas and methods to help you use SoTL as a professional development tool, a research agenda, a way to create theory, or for a deeper understanding of your teaching and your students' learning.

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Guide for Scientists, Engineers, and Mathematicians shows college and university faculty members how to draw on their disciplinary knowledge and teaching experience to investigate questions about student learning. It takes readers all the way through the inquiry process beginning with framing a research question and selecting a research design, moving on to gathering and analyzing evidence, and finally to making the results public. Numerous examples are provided at each stage, many from published studies of teaching and learning in science, engineering, or mathematics. At strategic points, short sets of questions prompt readers to pause and reflect, plan, or act. These questions are derived from the authors' experience leading many workshops in the United States and Canada on how to do the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). The taxonomy of SoTL questions-What works? What is? What could be?-that emerged from the SoTL studies undertaken by scholars in the Carnegie Academic for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning serves as a framework at many stages of the inquiry process. The book addresses the issue of evaluating and valuing this work, including implications for junior faculty who wish to engage in SoTL. The authors explain why SoTL should be of interest to STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) faculty at all types of higher education institutions, including faculty members active in traditional STEM research. They also give their perspective on the benefits of SoTL to faculty, to their institutions, to the academy, and to students.