Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)

Truman is a member of the Carnegie Foundation Campus Cluster program in SoTL. We are affiliated with the Developing New Scholars cluster led by Rockhurst University.  Our involvement began when John Ishiyama of our faculty was named a national Carnegie Scholar in 2001. See information about our cluster here.

CASTL Summer Institute: Each year the Carnegie Campus Cluster to which Truman belongs sponsors a June institute at a member campus. The Center for Teaching and Learning sends four faculty and SoTL Fellows have first dibs.

In 2007-2008 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning grants were available from Undergraduate Council in cooperation with the VPAA and the Center for Teaching and Learning. These monetary awards to support faculty who wish to study teaching and learning in their own courses were framed around the posted Guidelines here.

For 2008-2009 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) micro-grants will be available again from The Center for Teaching and Learning through the SoTL Fellowship. This fellowship is open to all faculty and instructional staff. To be eligible for a SoTL micro-grant you must attend the orientation meeting on August 13. The agenda for orientation is available here (soon to come). Please RSVP for the SoTL Orientation. There will be 2 additional required meetings fall semester which will be scheduled during the orientation meeting.
 

What is SoTL?

From Indiana University see this list of attributes.

University of Central Florida has rounded up these definitions.

Illinois State University offers these distinctions between good teaching, scholarly teaching, and the scholarship of teaching.

Indiana University South Bend publishes this rubric (pdf) for distinguishing between SoTL studies that are traditional research, classroom research, and essays.

Randy Bass' Inventio article, “The Scholarship of Teaching: What’s The Problem?” highlights the different role having a ‘problem’ plays in disciplinary research as contrasted with one’s teaching.

The International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSoTL) sponsors this online tutorial about SoTL.

An article in Inside Higher Ed .com as it relates to tenure policy.

In summation for Truman, we might say that SoTL is:
Systematic, reflection and inquiry about course or program level student learning conceived and undertaken by faculty in such a way that the findings may be reviewed, critiqued, replicated and extended by peers. These results yield another form of research that may be used in the promotion and tenure process. Your thoughts about this definition?
 

How can I begin to think through planning a SoTL inquiry?

Also, look at the “Getting Started” form (pdf) attached to this webliography.

One national Carnegie Scholar, Craig Nelson, has synthesized the different “genres” of SoTL studies that can be done in “How Could I Do Scholarship of Teaching and Learning?”

Here is a worksheet (pdf) that leads you through the steps of creating a researchable SoTL question. It was the handout given by Cheryl McConnell and Craig Sasse at the 2005 CASTL Institute for their session, "Framing Your Question." Cheryl and Craig are faculty at Rockhurst University, and have been active in SoTL work for a number of years.
 

How Have Other SoTL Scholars Framed Their Questions?

Dr. Barry Rubin at Indiana University gave this Powerpoint presentation on how he gradually framed and finally reframed his question.

Dr. Whitney Schlegel had this Powerpoint presentation on framing her question.

Use the goal approach for framing your question.

Use the issue approach for framing your question.
 

If I do a SoTL study; Is there a market for articles featuring this research?

The KEEP Toolkit

Getting SoTL Articles Published – A Few Tips

Here’s a listing of journal (xls) in the disciplines that publish SoTL articles.