International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Volume 2, Number 2, July 2008
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to current issues pageEssays About SoTL
Excerpt
Enhancing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Study
of the Factors Identified as Promoting and Hindering the Scholarly Activities
of Academics in One Faculty
The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) has, at its
very core, the linking of research and teaching/learning. Conceptions
of SoTL differ to degrees (Trigwell and Shale, 2004) but the common
thread within all accounts is the integration of research within teaching
and learning to enhance and further develop practice. Additionally,
in line with other research activities, consensus emerges on the need
for scholarly inquiries to be shared with the wider teaching and learning
community to ensure open review and scrutiny. The linking of research
and teaching/learning also runs to the processes by which SoTL is carried
out. Badley (2003), for example, highlights that scholarship involves
the same stages as the research process – planning aims and goals
of the inquiry, selecting appropriate methods to use, obtaining and
analysing results, disseminating the knowledge gained and critically
reflecting on the whole process. In this way it matches, as Laurillard
(2008) discusses, the teacher as action researcher.
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Full ArticleBio
Kerry Dobbins
Birmingham City University
Birmingham, England, UK
kerry.dobbins@bcu.ac.uk
I am a Research Assistant in Learning and Teaching in the Faculty of Health at Birmingham City University in Birmingham, England. I hold a Masters degree in Educational Research Methods from the University of Leicester. My research interests include the impact of government policy on teachers working lives and the academic self-esteem of students. In my present position I am involved in projects researching the involvement of healthcare service users in education and the use of simulation in learning. I also support faculty colleagues to carry out research and evaluation projects related to their own learning and teaching activity.