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Wednesday, March 10, 2010 Luncheon
“Realizing SoTL's Potential: A Challenging Road”
Gary Poole
There has been widespread optimism regarding the potential for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) to provide powerful ways to improve teaching and learning (e.g, Fukami, 2003; McKinney, 2007). Research on teaching and learning, conducted across institutions, can stimulate evidence-based change. Faculty members interested in teaching and learning can pursue curiosities and pressing questions the ways they know best — through research. All this activity can be clearly acknowledged within reward systems that understand the currency of research. These are the promises. But are we getting there? Has practice been significantly impacted by SoTL research? Are institutions embracing SoTL as a vehicle for professional development and career advancement? In some cases, the answer is “Yes,” but not in enough cases. In this session, we will examine some of the reasons why the promises of SoTL have not yet been sufficiently fulfilled, with the aim of moving forward in ways that get us closer to SoTL's full potential.
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Gary Poole
Director of the Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth and the Institute for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning
University of British Columbia |
Thursday, March 11, 2010 Dinner
“Making a Difference:
Application of SoTL Beyond the Classroom to Enhance Learning”
Kathleen McKinney
The scholarship of teaching and learning serves a variety of functions in higher education, but the primary one is to enhance learning. Though barriers exist to our use of SoTL to impact learning ( Poole , 2010 SoTL Commons keynote), we must continue and expand our efforts to apply this work in order to truly make a difference. Most of the application of SoTL occurs at the local-classroom-instructor level. This area of application is critical - perhaps the heart of SoTL. Yet, in order
to achieve the greatest impact, we must apply SoTL work in a variety of ways at several levels. We must continue to widen the spaces of the “teaching commons” (Huber & Hutchings, 2005). In this practical presentation, several areas or levels
of SoTL application will be discussed with special attention to those beyond the individual classroom level, some specific strategies or ways to overcome barriers briefly discussed, and concrete examples of these types of application from a variety of people and institutions described. Audience members' contributions of additional levels, strategies, and examples will be requested.
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Kathleen McKinney
Cross Chair in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Professor of Sociology
Illinois State University |
Friday, March 12, 2010 Luncheon
“ Empowering the scholarship of teaching and learning:
Towards an authentic
practice”
Carolin Kreber
In this presentation my aim is to look at the different kinds of questions
that can be asked as part of the scholarship of teaching and learning and
the different types of knowledge these questions might generate. I will
explore and unpack the meaning of the now common notion of ‘SoTL
research’ and compare it to an alternative or complementary notion of
scholarship, that of ‘SoTL practice’. The latter I will argue is not
just characterized by context-specific inquiries into the effectiveness of
certain teaching strategies in bringing about particular learning outcomes
but by questions that are directed at values that are inherent in practice
and are perpetuated through practice. I will explore how the
philosophical notion of ‘authenticity’ and empowerment might inform
the scholarship of teaching and learning. The subsequent discussion could
explore how one might promote within the sector a more critical, empowered
and authentic SoTL.
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Carolin Kreber
Director of the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Assessment
Professor of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
University of Edinburgh |
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