The three elements of SoTL

SoTL provides us with the evidence to underpin our learning and teaching practice. As with most other disciplines, tertiary teaching has a growing research literature that allows us to teach in new and improved ways. We don’t need to teach as we were taught.

To engage in SoTL, we need to:

  • be informed;
  • ‘experiment’ with our teaching; and
  • make public the outcomes of that experimentation.

The three elements of SOTL

Each of those three elements of SoTL sits on a continuum from informal to formal (research). For example, in terms of being informed, the continuum stretches from a coffee discussion with a colleague about a teaching issue, through to doing a full literature review on an issue.

In terms of enquiring, that continuum stretches from the changes that we make every semester to improve our teaching or our students’ learning, through to doing a research project in which we gain ethics approval for the work, collect and analyse data and eventually publish that data. 

In terms of making the outcomes of our teaching public, again, that can be as simple as talking with a colleague, or less simple, like giving a presentation on our enquiry at a staff meeting, through to publishing the outcomes of our research in a peer-reviewed journal.