Getting to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Professional Development in University Faculty

ASHA Leader ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (10) ◽  
pp. 14-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah M. Ginsberg
Author(s):  
Alisa Hutchinson ◽  
Anabel Stoeckle

Mid-Semester Assessment Programs (MAPs) have been successfully utilized as a professional development tool for faculty interested in improving their teaching in the context of higher education by assessing voluntary formative student feedback that guides changes instructors make in the classroom. Faculty centers and educational developers have the unique opportunity to recruit instructors via MAPs who have participated in these programs to promote and support the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) among faculty who already display an innate interest in best teaching practices and are open to advancing their own teaching in order to improve student learning and to propel student success. This chapter provides a guide for educational developers who seek to become active partners for faculty to become interested and engaged in the scholarship of teaching and learning through a unique recruitment mechanism that serves as a natural steppingstone for faculty not having engaged with SoTL yet.


Author(s):  
Kathryn Janet Meldrum ◽  
Kristi Giselsson

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) has been suggested as an ideal vehicle for engaging faculty with professional development for teaching in higher education. However, previous authors have identified that faculty find writing about SoTL difficult. The aim of this chapter is to support educational developers (EDs) to collaborate with faculty to support writing. Two theoretical frameworks to support collaboration are proposed: the first, the Knowledge Transforming Model of Writing, to assist with the process of writing; the second, an adaptation of Brigugilio's working in the third space framework to support collaboration. The authors utilise both frameworks to reflect on their own SoTL collaboration and subsequently pose questions to support faculty and EDs to do the same. Ultimately, it is proposed that collaboration not only enhances the practices of faculty and EDs but improves what should be an important priority for the wider academy: the learning outcomes of students.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-78
Author(s):  
Nicola Simmons ◽  
Lauren Scharff ◽  
Michelle Eady ◽  
Diana Gregory

The number of teaching-focused faculty (TFF) continues to increase, raising concerns about opportunities to engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) for academics who are hired to focus on teaching rather than research. Various names for these teaching-focused positions include, but are not limited to: instructional, limited-term faculty; permanent, but not eligible for tenure; equivalent to tenure-track (eligible for tenure); and casual teaching-focused. Regardless of title, TFF face a unique challenge: hired for excellence in teaching and committed to improving teaching and learning, they are often not granted support to engage in professional development or research related to teaching and learning. These and other challenges are associated with their academically marginalized positions. The authors are members of the Advocacy Committee of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL). This paper builds on a session we offered at the ISSOTL conference in Calgary in 2017 where we invited TFF to contribute narrative examples of institutional SoTL challenges and their strategies for overcoming them. We describe potential solutions to creating institutional cultures that are supportive of TFF engaging in SoTL. We finish by offering recommendations for creating a SoTL teaching-focused community within ISSOTL to provide social and professional support.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 328-331 ◽  
Author(s):  
Duane Knudson ◽  
Karen Meaney

This article describes the implementation and evaluation of an initiative to promote active learning through facility renovation and faculty training. Twenty faculty representing a variety of academic areas from 2 departments participated in a 3-part active-learning professional development workshop series. Department of Health and Human Performance faculty (N = 14) teaching 19 courses and 416 of the students in the new active classroom were surveyed on their attitudes on the facilities, room design, professional development, and active-learning instruction. Consistent with previous active-learning research, there were subtle differences between student and faculty perceptions of the importance of renovation features, active-learning exercises, and philosophy of the learning process. The initiative was effective in helping predisposed faculty to implement active-learning experiences in their classes and engaging in more scholarship of teaching and learning, as well as enhancing the visibility of the department as a leader in active learning and the scholarship of teaching and learning at the university.


2020 ◽  
pp. 147402222094473
Author(s):  
Emily Russell ◽  
Lucy Littler ◽  
Nancy Chick

Despite nearly ubiquitous general education requirements for students to take courses across disciplines, disciplinarity itself is often invisible to students and taken for granted by professors. We argue that surfacing these divisions and demystifying academic structures is, paradoxically, a key step in educating students toward the crossing of intellectual borders. In this article, we engage current Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to discuss the challenges both faculty and students face in navigating multidisciplinary general education programs, and we offer a practical resource for facilitating such integrative learning and pedagogy. This resource, a two-page handout outlining the disciplinary values behind the research processes and citation practices across several academic domains, can be used in a variety of settings—including classrooms and professional development workshops—for both student and faculty audiences, to achieve multiple purposes, including teaching and learning disciplinarity; demystifying disciplinary writing conventions; and assignment-, course-, or curricular redesign.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 58-76
Author(s):  
Melanie Hamilton ◽  
Nicola Simmons

Mid-career faculty (MCF) currently make up a significant number of faculty at higher educational institutions. This group comprises key stakeholders with institutional history, diverse teaching and learning experiences, and strong relationships with colleagues. While faculty need different kinds of support and opportunities at different career stages, it has been reported that mid-career professional development is under-researched and overlooked. We contend that professional development for MCF is essential if these faculty are going to continue to grow as educators, leaders, and scholars. With the support of Educational Developers (EDs), the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is one way for faculty to focus their professional development in the middle years of their career. Drawing on the literature about challenges for MCF and using the micro-meso-macro-mega framework, we explore ways in which EDs can use SoTL to re-engage MCF on a revitalized path. Our synthesis offers reflections on our career experiences as EDs and boundary-spanning points to ponder for both EDs and MCF as they enter into SoTL engagement.


2014 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-55
Author(s):  
Michael Perini

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a discipline that emphasizes instructional development and enhanced student learning through the dissemination of practitioner theory and experience. The discipline, however, primarily considers the role and perspectives of higher education and K-12 faculty. Yet SoTL also has pragmatic implications for librarians as it promotes instructional improvement, collaborative research, networking, and professional development across the academy.


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