Session Information
32 SES 03, Cooperative Learning (Part 2)
Paper Session
Contribution
Literature and background to the study:
The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) can be described as an approach whereby communities of teachers who are committed to pedagogical inquiry and innovation meet to exchange ideas about teaching and learning and subsequently apply those ideas to address the challenges of educating students (Huber and Hutchings 2005). The scholarship of teaching and learning as an educational development strategy is well documented as providing a fresh perspective on academic staff development. Rather than depending solely on development from outside agents, such as academic staff developers, academics can gather evidence about their own teaching for improvement of their educational practice. By using evidence-gathering and documentation strategies, academics can make their students’ learning more visible. Publishing their work contributes to pedagogical knowledge in their disciplines (Hutchings, Huber and Ciccone 2011) and creates a new space of pedagogical exchange and collaboration (Huber and Hutchings 2005).
There are many reports of the implementation of SoTL globally (for example Buch 2008; Hubball, Clarke and Poole 2010). Hubball et al. (2010) examined the mentoring of SoTL research over a 10-year implementation period at the research-intensive University of British Columbia in Canada.
While there are accounts of SoTL initiatives at other universities, at the university under study a SoTL programme, designed for the specific needs of its academic staff, which would have given them the knowledge and skills to undertake research on their teaching and learning and make the findings public through peer-reviewed outputs, had not been previously implemented. Candidates on the SoTL programme were from the different faculties (Engineering, Library, Health and Wellness, Informatics and Design, Educationand Social Sciences, Business and Applied Sciences) which provided a multi-disciplinary context.
This paper reports on a study that sought to determine the perceptions of staff regarding the initial implementation of a SoTL programme, as part of a professional development initiative, at a (teaching intensive) University of Technology in South Africa. The study was a quality enhancement initiative and the findings were intended to improve future SoTL programmes. The intent of this paper is to report on the findings of this evaluation study pertaining to research on and for a higher education institution through a SoTL programme.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Buch, K. 2008. Faculty Perceptions of SoTL at a Research Institution: A Preliminary Study. Teaching of Psychology, 35: 297–300. Engestrom, Y. 1987. Learning by expanding: An activity-orientated approach to developmental research. Helsinki: Orienta Konsultit. Hubball, H., Clarke, A. and Poole, G. 2010. Ten-year reflections on mentoring SoTL research in a research-intensive university. International Journal for Academic Development 15(2):117–120. Huber, M and Hutchings, P. 2005. The advancement of learning: Building the teaching commons. San Francisco: Jossey Bass. Hutchings, P., Huber, M. and Ciccone, A. 2011. The scholarship of teaching and learning reconsidered: Institutional integration and impact. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
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