Resources

Although academic identity has received attention in the literature, there have been few attempts to understand the influence on identity from engagement with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). In this paper, we (a group of eight scholars from five different countries) describe how our interactions with SoTL have impacted the shaping of our academic identities. We have struggled to define the value, purpose, outcomes, and meanings of being a disciplined SoTL scholar, sometimes in addition to and sometimes in opposition to being a disciplinary scholar. Through analysis of our own 100-word reflective narratives, we identify common conflicts and configurations around our experiences of developing a SoTL identity. We describe how navigating among conflicting identities can lead us into a troublesome but deeply reflective liminal space, prompting profound realizations and the reconstruction of academic identity. Drawing on this notion of liminality helps us to understand our journeys as moving through a necessary and important transformational landscape, and allows us to suggest ways to support those engaging with SoTL to develop an integrative SoTL identity.

From Texas Tech University, this 8-page document provides general strategies and tips for developing a syllabus. Starting with an explanation of the goal and function of a syllabus, it then provides advice on each of the required and optional sections of a syllabus, and ends with a list of online and paper-based resources.

Chapter 3 of Florida State University’s Guide to Teaching & Learning Practices contains suggestions for creating a syllabus. Especially useful is the section with examples of writing policy and rule statements, and the sample syllabus.

Chapter 3 of Florida State University’s Guide to Teaching & Learning Practices contains suggestions for creating a syllabus. Especially useful is the section with examples of writing policy and rule statements, and the sample syllabus.

This web page from the University of Michigan offers suggestions on creating a syllabus “students will appreciate and respond positively to.” Included are ideas on setting learning goals, what to include in your syllabus, course policies and schedule/weekly calendar/assignments.

An early demonstration of the value to teachers (and students) of writing the scholarship of teaching (SoTL) by defining a challenge to classroom learning, a “problem” to be investigated (much as we define a problem for our guild research to address) – in this case: learning goals and student pre-knowledge.

“Metacognition” refers to helping students learn how to learn. This article provides suggestions for integrating student metacognition into a college course. It uses the example of a biology classroom, but the material is easily transferable. 

Is it feasible for nonfluent instructors to teach Biblical Hebrew by communicative principles? If it is feasible, will communicative instruction enhance postsecondary learning of a classical language? To begin answering these questions, two consultants representing second language acquisition (SLA) and technology-assisted language learning led 8 Biblical Hebrew instructors and a graduate assistant through a 3-year process involving study of SLA principles, development of Biblical Hebrew classroom manuals, training of teachers, and field-testing of materials with more than 90 students in 7 institutions. More than two-thirds of the students and all instructors found the communicative approach both effective and preferable to grammar-translation and audiolingual methods customarily employed for learning classical languages.

This research explores key features of the scholarship of teaching and learning presented in nine higher education pedagogical journals. In an effort to better understand the domain in which the journal Teaching Sociology resides, descriptive and comparative analyses indicate that there is notable variation in the type of knowledge offered to teacher-scholars in different disciplines and in the patterns of authorship in terms of solo or multiple authors and gender. Teaching Sociology appears to fare well in comparison with other journals for the criteria examined. The critical issue of determining how this knowledge serves us in practice remains.

Surveys recent research in the preparation of future faculty, citing the nearly exclusive emphasis by graduate programs on preparation for positions in research universities, of which there are very few, at the expense of preparing students for the realities of the jobs that will likely begin their careers. Individual faculty choose what to emphasize to their advisees. Centralized standards for teaching education are rare. Also assess the results of directed programs on preparation for future positions.