Theme: The Teacher |
Strong collegial networks and a desire for change are important for teachers who develop towards a scholarship of teaching and learning | ||||||
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Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) can be described as a research-oriented, scholarly approach to the what, how and why of one’s teaching and supervision, with students’ learning at heart1,2. Apart from producing learning, and learners, SoTL entails building knowledge and developing practices for teaching. SoTL has also been described as a driver for change towards a “culture of continuous improvement of teaching and student learning”3 within the academy. Promoting SoTL can thus be viewed as a sustainable strategy to deal with the many challenges that face higher education.
Many universities and faculties wish to promote the development of SoTL, and efforts include teaching awards, teaching academies, teacher training initiatives, conferences and publications on teaching and learning.
In order to be able to promote SoTL it is important to understand why and under what circumstances teachers develop a scholarly approach to their teaching and their students’ learning.
The interviewees’ primary motivation for engaging in teaching and developing a scholarly approach to teaching and learning was a concern for:
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Their professional and/or academic field
- Quality and improvement of healthcare
- Quality, sustainability and growth of own academic field
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Teaching and supervision at departments and clinics
- Developing skills, understanding and values in teaching and supervision
- Contributing to a professionalization of teaching and supervision
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To develop as a teacher, supervisor or educational leader
- Commitment to scholarly teaching
- Teaching as integral to professional competence
Students were seen as future colleagues and important agents for development.
SoTL was described as a shared enterprise, where colleagues and extended networks were indispensible.
The teachers all described circumstances were they were given responsibility, had fairly large freedom of action, and had some power. Their commitment to development extended well outside their own teaching. Good leadership and strong collegiality was seen as helpful, while poor or absent leadership, uncoordinated study programmes, or simply no one caring, was viewed as obstructive, causing the teachers to step back and lower their ambitions for development.
Courses in medical education and the Centre for Teaching and Learning had been important in providing theory and a shared vocabulary, and by giving opportunities to exchange experiences and create networks.
Concern for and understanding of learning was also seen as a cornerstone in the respective medical or health professions. Some claimed similarities between inquiry in education and in medicine/health
Looking back, awards and career advantages had not been important for the teachers when developing towards SoTL. All seven interviewees had occupied academic positions for quite some time, which were earned through professional and/or research qualifications – not through teaching. All were critical to how only research seemed to matter at the faculty. However, proof of SoTL had now become more important, for two respondents in particular, in pursuing new goals and academic opportunities.
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The aim of this study is to better understand circumstances where teachers in a research-intensive faculty of medicine and health sciences develop towards SoTL.
Teachers were included in our study if they:
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had published peer-reviewed articles on teaching and learning were the object of study had been their own taught subject and students,
and/or
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had been admitted to the faculty’s teaching academy (were inclusion criteria are derived from SoTL)
and
- had an extensive experience of teaching and were known by colleagues to be excellent teachers
Out of the 74 teachers who had published peer-review articles on teaching and learning (29 unique single or first authors), and 13 members of the teaching academy (of which 10 had also published on their teaching in peer-reviewed journals), seven were chosen. We strived for a broad representation of the different health professions. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, each lasting between 1 and 1,5 hours. The opening question in the interviews was for the teachers to describe circumstances and events that had been important in their development as teachers.
Our results suggest that research-intensive institutions and faculties who wish to promote scholarly teaching and educational development should:
- seriously reconsider the relative weight it gives to teaching qualifications for promotion and tenure
- increase demands on the qualifications of educational leaders but also promote their status more
- create opportunities for teachers to meet and create networks across professions and disciplines
- avoid small, simplistic teaching awards and instead focus on fewer, more substantial ones that requires similar efforts and qualities as awards for research
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Andresen, L. W. (2000). A Useable, Trans-Disciplinary Conception of Scholarship. Higher Education Research & Development, 19, 137-153.
- Trigwell, K. & Shale, S. (2004). Student Learning and the Scholarship of University Teaching. Studies in Higher Education, 29, 523-536.
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Mårtensson, K., Roxå, T. & Olsson, T. (2011). Developing a quality culture through the scholarship of teaching and learning. Higher Education Research and Development, 30, 51-62.