The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is an opportunity for appreciating and using diversity in higher education: The research-based and systematically reflective engagement with one’s own teaching and the students’ learning offers room for dealing with the learning prerequisites and different resources of students as well as colleagues’ perspectives. Since its first naming in the 1990s, SoTL practices evolved and differentiated, making it difficult to define SoTL (Fanghael et al., 2016; Simmons & Marquis, 2017). There are not only diverse practices and focuses, but also different normative demands: While most SoTL work is oriented to students’ understanding within the disciplines, Kreber and Kranton suggest a broader view on SoTL including a critical perspective and transformative learning of both teachers and students (Kreber & Kranton, 2000; Kreber, 2022). The international discussion is very lively, showing a development towards the acknowledgement of teaching and learning’s socio-political purposes (Kreber, 2022). 

The SoTL discussion in the German speaking world is not parallel to the English speaking one: while SoTL took off in the United States in the 1990s (Huber & Hutchings, 2005; Kreber, 2022), there was little visible activity in German-speaking countries for some time and basic discussions are still caught up with (Fahr, 2021; Huber, 2018). This raises the question of whether international developments are having an impact in Germany: Do scholars in Germany use SoTL for their transformative learning to support students better or to involve them more? Do they orient their interest towards socio-political purposes or are they striving for discipline-specific knowledge on teaching and learning? Are there even specificities that might be inspiring for other contexts? 

To explore German scholars’ aims and place them against the background of the international development, the question guiding our study is: What are the aims that can be identified in current German SoTL publications? We take an empirical approach by conducting a literature review and subsequently discuss our findings against international claims and developments, including developments in other European countries. 

At the conference, we are particularly interested in other European perspectives. The presentation can also encourage an overarching normative discussion on SoTL and its support in universities: Is SoTL supposed to relate to specific aims and values or a process in which each scholar is to set his/her/their own goals and priorities? Can normatively charged academic development programs result in a contradiction to academic freedom? 

Our analysis is based on the review of 68 journal, book and handbook articles from SoTL outlets and outlets which university teachers use for an exchange about teaching. All articles are peer- or editorial-reviewed and are subject to a selection process with regard to SoTL criteria. We join a “big tent” (Huber & Hutchings, 2005, p. 4) understanding and relate to basic aspects found in most SoTL descriptions: scholars undertake systematic or methodical inquiry into their teaching related to the students’ learning and share their results to give impulses for the improvement of teaching beyond their own practice (Kern et al., 2015). Since the sharing aspect is obviously fulfilled when there is a publication, we concentrate on the foundation in the authors’ own teaching practice resp. in their students’ learning and the inquiry character. In a broad understanding, inquiry means that theoretically informed reflection is included as well as empirical investigation. We do not use data bases but the archives of specific journals and edited volumes. The selection process in several stages (title review, abstract review, full paper review) is guided not only by the broad SoTL term, but also by intentionally set geographic and time limitations: authors are working in a German higher education institution and the article has been published in 2021 or 2022. This way we can ensure that the results are up to date. We cannot provide a development study over a longer period. The identified full papers are read, coded and analysed by both authors using Citavi’s knowledge management and thought features (used analogously to MAXQDA, Kuckartz & Rädiker, 2019). Our approach is accompanied by limitations: by analyzing only papers published in full articles, we cannot represent the breadth of SoTL in Germany. There is much valuable informal exchange that should be considered in further studies. In addition, topics and types of analysis are influenced by calls for papers or specific SoTL support programs. Nevertheless, they reflect SoTL in Germany.

First, it is a challenge to identify SoTL work as such in the first place. Many authors distance themselves linguistically from their own teaching and present SoTL projects in an objectified style. Moreover, some authors are publishing with co-authors from higher education or education departments. These papers are characterized by sound theoretical concepts of teaching and an elaborate empirical methodology deeply rooted in educational research. The analysis is still running, but will be completed before the conference. We give an outlook here based on the preliminary analysis of 20 coded articles meeting SoTL criteria. In terms of methodology, most of the articles have an empirical focus, few are making use of a theoretical research approach. Due to a focus on innovation, the research approach often has an evaluative character. This shows that some observations by Huber (2014) are still valid for current SoTL in Germany: reports on teaching innovation are dominant. However, some of the evaluation of these innovations is complex; scholars focus on student learning and use mixed method designs. Regarding the proclaimed aims of the SoTL projects, further teaching development and discipline-specific knowledge are mentioned in addition to the evaluation of innovations, but socio-political considerations only play a role in a few individual cases. There, too, they represent an overarching framework rather than a specific development goal or they are clearly connected to the discipline, which encompasses topics with socio-political relevance like teacher education or social pedagogics. Lecturers' commitment to transformative learning is undoubtedly there, but might still often remain below the radar of the - in Germany still few - SoTL groups and publications.

Fahr, U. (2021). Probleme und Entwicklungspotenziale des Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Die Erforschung der eigenen Lehre als professionelle Herausforderung. In U. Fahr, A. Kenner, H. Angenent & A. Eßer-Lüghausen (Hrsg.). Hochschullehre erforschen: Innovative Impulse für das Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Springer VS. Fanghanel, J., Pritchard, J., Potter, J. & Wisker, G. (2016). Defining and supporting the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL): A sector-wide study. Literature Review. Higher Education Academy. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/literature_review_1568037331.pdf Huber, L. (2014). Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Konzept, Geschichte, Formen, Entwicklungsaufgaben. In L. Huber, A. Pilniok, R. Sethe, B. Szczyrba & M. Vogel (Eds.), Forschendes Lehren im eigenen Fach: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Beispielen (2nd edition, p. 19–36). wbv. Huber, L. (2018). SoTL weiterdenken! Zur Situation und Entwicklung des Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) an deutschen Hochschulen. Das Hochschulwesen, 66(1-2), 33–41. Huber, M. T. & Hutchings, P. (2005). The Advancement of Learning: Building the Teaching Commons. Jossey-Bass. Kern, B., Mettetal, G., Dixson, M. & Morgan, R. K. (2015). The role of SoTL in the academy: Upon the 25th anniversary of Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 15(3), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.14434/josotl.v15i3.13623 Kreber, C. (2022). The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. In G. Reinmann & R. Rhein (Hrsg.), Wissenschaftsdidaktik I: Einführung (S. 222–243). transcript. Kreber, C. & Cranton, P. A. (2000). Exploring the Scholarship of Teaching. The Journal of Higher Education, 71(4), 476. https://doi.org/10.2307/2649149 Kuckartz, U. & Rädiker, S. (2019). Analyzing Qualitative Data with MAXQDA. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15671-8 Simmons, N. & Marquis, E. (2017). Defining the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2017.2.2