cft offers new guide: scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl)

posted by rhett mcdaniel on tuesday, september 24, 2013 in news, resource.

the scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl, pronounced “sō-tul” in the us) is a synthesis of teaching, learning, and research in higher education that aims to bring a scholarly lens—the curiosity, the inquiry, the rigor, the disciplinary variety—to what happens in the classroom (brick-and-mortar, virtual, co-curricular, et al.).   sotl involves

• asking meaningful questions about student learning and about the teaching activities designed to facilitate student learning,
• answering those questions by first making relevant student learning visible as evidence of thinking and learning (or mis-learning), and then systematically analyzing this evidence, and
• sharing the results of that analysis publicly to invite review and to contribute to the body of knowledge on student learning in a variety of contexts, and
• aiming to improve student learning by strengthening the practice of teaching (one’s own and others’).

this new guide, from cft assistant director nancy chick, offers two layers:

• on easily navigable web pages, you’ll find a brief introduction first to an understanding of sotl and then to the process of doing sotl, and
• in pdfs linked throughout the “doing sotl” web pages, you’ll find a tutorial of the basics of designing a sotl project.

visit the sotl guide.

tags: scholarship of teaching and learning, sotl, teaching guide