2026-06-15¶

Date: 2026-06-15
Lead discussion: Richel Bilderbeek
Paper: Mårtensson, Katarina, Torgny Roxå, and Thomas Olsson. "Developing a quality culture through the scholarship of teaching and learning." Higher Education Research & Development 30.1 (2011): 51-62. DOI to paper

Discussion¶

Talk: why I chose this paper

Answers

I wanted to know if reading the literature to improve teaching is worth it: to which extent does it make one a better teacher.

1. What grade on a scale from 1 (worst) to 10 (best) would you give this paper?
2. How would you summarize this paper in one line?
3. How would you praise the paper?
4. How would you criticise the paper?
5. Do you believe that we should do what this paper advises?
6. How does this paper make us better teachers?

What grade on a scale from 1 (worst) to 10 (best) would you give this paper?

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R: 5
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How would you summarize this paper in one line?

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R: The successes of a change of teaching culture that worked at a university written by one of the main people involved, without providing any evidence
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How would you praise the paper?

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R: It is an easy read that makes me look forward to read the papers it refers too.
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How would you criticise the paper?

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R: It does not answer the question if it is worth it. The Lund University example does not show any numbers to indicate how much effect it had. Because the lead author has been deeply involved in this example, I feel this change has been described too clean and postive to be true.
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Do you believe that we should do what this paper advises?

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R: No. This is just a success story that has no credibility to me
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How does this paper make us better teachers?

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R: It makes us happier that we are not forced into programs that cannot prove their own worth.
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Notes¶

SoTL started with [Hutchings and Shulman, 1999] to, I quote:

foster significant, long-lasting learning for all students
advance the practice and profession of teaching
bring to teaching the recognition afforded to other forms of scholarly work

Features of SoTL teaching, also from [Hutchings and Shulman, 1999]:

Be an informed teacher e.g. certain practices of classroom assessment and evidence gathering, informed by current ideas about teaching, when it invites peer collaboration and review
being public (“community property”)
being open to critique and evaluation
being open in a form that others can build on
it involves question-asking, inquiry, and investigation, particularly around issues of student learning

SoTL second classic is [Felten, 2013], which that that SoTL follows there principles:

inquiry into student learning, i.e. try to understand how students learn
grounded in context, i.e. embrace that teaching differs across many factors such as classroom size, field, etc.
methodologically sound, i.e. use the right methods to try to understand how students learn
conducted in partnership with students, i.e. partner with the students to find out how they learn
appropriately public, i.e. try to understand have students learn in such a way that it can be criticized and used by colleagues

such as McKinney (2007), that I cannot read. I've sent UU UB an email.

Criticism of SoTL comes from [Canning and Masika, 2022] (which claim that SoTL started with [Boyer, 1990]) that states that SoTL once was good, later evolved into SoTL 2.0 (see their table below) and now needs to be thrown out of the window.

.	SoTL 1.0	SoTL 2.0
Central concerns	A concern for better understandings of teaching and learning	A concern for being and valuing learning and teaching
Arena	Disseminated and peer reviewed outside an institution.	An institutional / internal focus.
Definition	Clearly defined and delineated	Inclusive of all that relates to teaching and learning.
Philosophy	Philosophically inclusive	Philosophically untheorised.
Dissemination	Externally focused and disseminated.	Internally focused and sometimes disseminated.
Leadership	Research-led	Management-led
Innovation	Innovates and contributes original knowledge.	May innovate, but does not disseminate.
Foundation	Builds on previous scholarship	Builds on the needs of the institution or individuals.

Another criticism comes from [Macfarlane, 2011], which states that having 'teaching professors' implies that there are 'real' 'research professors' and argues for integrating the two and equally scrutinizing SoTL and other research.

Book mentioned:

Routes to Change: Strategic Leadership in SoTL: seems a useless book to me

References¶

[Boyer, 1990] Boyer, Ernest L. Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Princeton University Press, 3175 Princeton Pike, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648., 1990.
[Canning and Masika, 2022] Canning, John, and Rachel Masika. "The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL): the thorn in the flesh of educational research." Studies in Higher Education 47.6 (2022): 1084-1096.
[Felten, 2013] , Peter. "Principles of good practice in SoTL." Teaching and learning inquiry 1.1 (2013): 121-125.
[Hutchings and Shulman, 1999] Hutchings, Pat, and Lee S. Shulman. "The scholarship of teaching: New elaborations, new developments." Change: The magazine of Higher learning 31.5 (1999): 10-15.
[Macfarlane, 2011] Macfarlane, Bruce. "Prizes, pedagogic research and teaching professors: Lowering the status of teaching and learning through bifurcation." Teaching in Higher Education 16.1 (2011): 127-130.
[McKinney, 2010] McKinney, Kathleen. Enhancing learning through the scholarship of teaching and learning: The challenges and joys of juggling. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
[Mårtensson et al., 2011] Mårtensson, Katarina, Torgny Roxå, and Thomas Olsson. "Developing a quality culture through the scholarship of teaching and learning." Higher Education Research & Development 30.1 (2011): 51-62. DOI to paper