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The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) is the name for the field of inquiry of applying research methods to the teaching and learning process. An instructor doing SOTL research uses educational research methods to research an aspect of his/her students's learning, and, as in all scholarship, communicates that new knowledge to a wider audience. While the idea can trace its roots back many decades, the concept gained new prominence with the publication of Ernest Boyer's book Scholarship Reconsidered in 1990. In that work, Boyer stated:
We believe the time has come to move beyond the tired old “teaching versus research” debate and give the familiar and honorable term “scholarship” a broader, more capacious meaning, one that brings legitimacy to the full scope of academic work. Surely, scholarship means engaging in original research. But the work of the scholar also means stepping back from one’s investigation, looking for connections, building bridges between theory and practice, and communicating one’s knowledge effectively to students.
This work started the modern SOTL movement, and the beginning of a broader recognition that there could be meaningful scholarship done in the course of being a teacher.
There are many definitions of the exact parameters of SOTL, but it is generally agreed that it involves faculty members asking questions about their own students' learning, creating and executing a research design to investigate that learning, and disseminating the results of that research to a wider audience so that other instructors may improve their courses.
This definition distinguishes SOTL from scholarly teaching, which is the use of the results of pedagogical research to inform and shape ones own teaching. The diagram below illustrates the relationship, and how SOTL bridges the realms of teaching and research.
SOTL Conceptual Diagram. Adapted from material at ISSOTL.
SOTL as a method of scholarly inquiry to improve teaching and learning benefits everyone, the teacher/scholar who does the research, the students who take improved courses, the institution who sponsors the research, and the discipline that benefits from the dissemnated knowledge.
SOTL at Coastal Carolina University |
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Coastal Carolina University has many faculty engaged in SOTL research, and an internal grant program designed to support Coastal faculty who wish to research student learning in their own classes.
CCU SOTL Grant Program
Coastal Carolina University is also sponsoring a conference on on SOTL Research! This conference will be held from March 26-28, 2008, at the Holiday Inn West, in Myrtle Beach, SC. For information about registering, attending, and presenting, please go to the conference site:
2008 SOTL at the Beach!
CASTL - Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
ISSOTL - International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Excellent SOTL pages at other Centers:
SOTL Journals and Conferences |
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Lists of Journals of SOTL Research:
Conferences for SOTL Research
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