What is SoTL?

Welcome to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) path. This path discusses what the field of SoTL covers, how to develop your SoTL research question, and also provides resources on getting started with your own SoTL project.

What is the difference between scholarly teaching and SoTL?

Many instructors already engage in scholarly teaching, a process which can include many of the components of a SoTL project. Scholarly teaching involves consulting the literature to identify new teaching methods or address an existing issue in the classroom and then observing, documenting and analyzing the results of implementing the new pedagogy. SoTL projects take this process further, by examining the results within the context of previous studies and disseminating the work in a public forum, often evaluated by peer review.

Richlin, L. (2001). Scholarly Teaching and the Scholarship of Teaching. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2001(86), 57-58.

Components of the Scholarship and Teaching and Learning

One framework for looking at different components of SoTL is Peter Felten’s Principles of Good Practice in SoTL which include the following:

• Inquiry focused on student learning – this could include examining how students gain disciplinary knowledge, exploring the effectiveness of different teaching techniques or investigating changes in students’ beliefs or values.
• Grounded in context – this means that SoTL research should be related to previous work in the field as well as relevant to the specific disciplines, cultures and institutions involved in the research.
• Methodologically sound – while SoTL projects may utilize a variety of different methodologies and analyses, it is important that all practices are rigorous.
• Conducted in partnership with students – this means that students must be at the center of all SoTL projects, whether as respected and informed participants or as partners throughout the research process.
• Appropriately public – as discussed in comparison to scholarly teaching, sharing knowledge is an important part of every SoTL project.
• Watch the following video to hear some of the leaders in the field of SoTL talk about what they believe are key components of SoTL.

Center for Engaged Learning at Elon University – Discussion on SoTL