Forum for Teaching and Learning: Home

History and Overview:

·         Each December the university president, vice presidents, and representatives of various schools and departments throughout the university meet for two days to develop plans for the next academic year.

·         Out of these discussions, Key Result Areas (KRAs) are developed. In 2007 one such area was Academic Excellence and teaching expectations. A subcommittee of the KRA developed a list of teaching expectations for the university based on its Core Values.

·         After developing and implementing the Core Values and Teaching: Competencies and Expectations the next step was to expand the committee to be more representative of the university faculty and include all schools and centers.

·         The SoTL Committee (later renamed the Forum on Teaching and Learning Committee) continued and expanded the work of the KRA. Committee membership represented the three schools, on campus, and center and online programs and faculty throughout the university.

·         After brainstorming using multiple methodologies to reach consensus, the committee identified three areas of importance: (a) Achieving Balance and Scholarship, (b) Student Ability and Motivation (c) Relationships with and Engaging Adjuncts. Faculty volunteered to form subcommittees exploring each of the three areas. Exploration included clarifying the issue, delineating why the area was important to teaching and learning at Saint Leo University and identifying what each faculty member hoped to achieve by actively contributing to the work of the subcommittee. Each subcommittee defined the outcomes and actions needed to implement SoTL at Saint Leo University.

The scholarship of teaching and learning (SOTL) is a scholarly, systematic approach to researching teaching and the public sharing and review of such work.  Schulman (2001) asserts the scholarship of teaching and learning "shares established criteria of scholarship in general, such as that it is made public, can be reviewed critically by members of the appropriate community, and can be built upon by others to advance the field."

In work at the Carnegie Foundation SoTL has been defined as,  “problem posing about an issue of teaching or learning, study of the problem through methods appropriate to the disciplinary epistemologies, applications of results to practice, communication of results, self-reflection, and peer review” (Cambridge, 2001) and a “systematic reflection on teaching and learning made public" (McKinney, 2007, p. 157). 

Cambridge, B. (2001).  Fostering the scholarship of teaching and learning: Communities of practice.  In D. Lieberman and C. Wehlburg (Eds.), To improve the academy (pp. 3-16). Bolton, MA: Anker.

McKinney, K. (2007).  Enhancing learning through the scholarship of teaching and learning: The challenges and joy of juggling.  San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Shulman, L. E. (2001).  Remarks at the teaching symposium for the cross endowed chair for the scholarship of teaching and learning.  Normal, IL: Illinois State University.

View the PowerPoints below to learn more about the Forum for Teaching and Learning and SoTL: