The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)

What is SoTL?

The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is a systemic inquiry into teaching and/or student learning that culminates in dissemination of your results to the broader community. SoTL differs from scholarly teaching, which is the practice of grounding your teaching practice in evidence-based strategies from the educational literature. While SoTL research is informed by relevant research on teaching and learning, it seeks to add to the relevant literature rather than merely apply it.

SoTL projects address a variety of question types (Hutchings, 2000; Huang & Looker, 2013) including:

1. “Is it working?” – evaluating the effectiveness of different teaching approaches.
2. “What does it look like?” – describing a framework for thinking about teaching and learning.
3. “What would it look like?” – envisioning goals for teaching and learning that have yet to be met or are new to the investigator.
4. “What works where?” – evaluating the effectiveness of different teaching approaches in various contexts.

Resources for getting started in SoTL

The best place to start is by getting familiar with the principles of SoTL. The paper “Principles of Good Practices in SoTL” may be helpful for a brief overview. The “SoTL Guide” provides a more in-depth introduction to what SoTL is and how to do it. The UWSP library also has a variety of books that can help get you started with SoTL including:

• Doing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Measuring Systemic changes to Teaching and Improvements in Learning
  
• SoTL in Action: Illuminating Critical Moments of Practice

Depending on how familiar you are with the SoTL literature, you may find these articles helpful:

• "Searching the Literature on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): An Academic Literacies Perspective Part 1"
• "Reviewing the Literature on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): An Academic Literacies Perspective Part 2"

If you are unfamiliar with social science research and are looking for guidance on how to develop a good research idea and collect data, the Research Methods Knowledge Base might be helpful.

If you’re interested in an interactive tool that can help you design a SoTL project, the Hopscotch Model may be useful.

SoTL and the Institutional Review Board

Conducting SoTL research raises ethical considerations, and all projects should seek approval from the Institutional Review Board.

Before beginning your SoTL project you should

1. Complete IRB training
2. Familiarize yourself with the IRB Process
3. Submit all relevant IRB Forms

Professional Development

UWSP faculty and instructors who are interested in SoTL research are encouraged to apply for the Wisconsin Teaching Fellows and Scholars program or to reach out to CITL with questions.

Additional SoTL resources

International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) – The International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Inc. serves faculty members, staff, and students who care about teaching and learning as serious intellectual work.