Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
What is SoTL?
“[SoTL] is a kind of going meta in which faculty frame and systematically investigate questions related to student learning – the conditions under which it occurs, what it looks like, how to deepen it and so forth – and do so with an eye not only to improve their own classrooms but to advancing practice beyond it.” (Hutchings & Shulman 1999)
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) generally entails the study of student learning and the public sharing of these investigations. Many faculty take a scholarly approach to teaching such as reading the higher education pedagogical literature, reviewing and making changes to teaching based on course evaluation data, or attending teaching-related professional development workshops.
U of T SoTL Showcase
Project: Community-engaged Learning (CEL): Integrating Anthropological Discourse. The project focused on the course Anthropology and Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island in Canada (ANT241).
Goals: Guided by the Indigenous Action Group at UTM, this project integrated Indigenous methodologies at each stage. Answering the Call, Wecheehetowin: The entire community bears a responsibility for action, but Indigenous people must be at the centre of decision-making, with full agency and not as people being acted upon (UofT Steering Committee, 2016, p. 31).
Data collection: Existing course materials; pre and post surveys; interviews with students.
Results: In-progress
View our webinar, “Qualitative Methods in SoTL Research” (enrol in the Hub for access) to learn more about this project.