International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Volume 1, Number 2, 2007
Return to Current Issues PageInvited Essay on SoTL
Excerpt
SoTL in the Commons: Elephant, Authenticity and Journey
I find it useful to refer to the metaphor of an international feel of the ‘elephant’ presented by Pat Hutchings in the inaugural issue of this journal. Indeed, definitions of scholarship of teaching and learning can be very different depending on which parts of the anatomy one is feeling (or seeing, or experiencing). With a specific focus on the role of theory, Pat took readers through variations of how theory is perceived in different traditions to reach a common ground for all: theory is not an end in itself, but a condition for doing better what we most care about as educators as essential to a meaning-making, knowledge-building process.
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Ora Kwo
The University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong, China
wykwo@hku.hk
I am an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong with specific research interests in processes of learning to teach and professional development of teachers. In 1997, I was awarded a University Teaching Fellowship by the University of Hong Kong, in formal recognition of teaching excellence. Since then, my research output has extended to quality of teaching and learning in higher education. In 1999-2000, I held a Universitas 21 Fellowship at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Since 2001, I have been working in partnership with teacher educators in Zhejiang Province of China for building a learning community known as "Teacher and Teachers Educators in Action Learning (TATEAL)".