Why use SoTL in your teaching?
The quality of education provision is a key responsibility of tertiary institutions and those of us who work in them. Institutions have rigorous quality assurance processes in place, many programs require registration with their associated professional body, and the many governments have national regulators who undertake quality assurance processes within their higher education sector. And yet, at the end of the day, the quality of the education provision of any institution comes down to what we as teachers do and know, day in and day out, with our classes. Just as we expect professionals such as our dentists and doctors to keep abreast of developments in their fields, we need to keep up with developments in the academic profession. Unlike doctors and dentists, if we teach, we have two areas in which to keep up to date; our discipline area and the teaching of our discipline. It’s likely that if we teach as we were taught, we will not provide the best possible education for our students. Taking a scholarly approach to our teaching can help us to improve our teaching practice, our students’ learning and the provision of our education.
Engaging in scholarly teaching, and having the evidence that we are continually improving our students’ learning, also can support our applications for probation, promotion, teaching awards and teaching grants. Many colleagues have collected evidence of their scholarly teaching practice and successfully used that evidence in their applications.
Shulman (2000) argues that “…an educator can teach with integrity only if an effort is made to examine the impact of his or her work on the students” (Shulman, 2002, p. vii).
Watch the video below of Dr Daniel Eldridge from Swinburne University of Technology talking about his academic journey in taking a scholarly approach to his teaching.
Transcript [pdf, 210KB] Links to an external site.
Now watch the following video of Shannon Barnes from the Australian Catholic University who explains why she decided to take a scholarly approach to her teaching.
Transcript [pdf, 210KB] Links to an external site.
Finally, Dr John Debs from the Australian National University talks about taking a scholarly approach to his teaching.