The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is the perspective that instructors can approach their teaching as a form of scholarly work. Eileen Bender and Donald Grey (1999) describe the scholarship of teaching in this way:

"... the scholarship of teaching is not merely teaching our scholarship. Nor is it simply teaching well. ...The scholarship of teaching means that we invest in our teaching the intellectual powers we practice in our research..."  (emphasis added)

Pat Hutching and Lee Shulman (1999) also argue that the scholarship of teaching and learning is more than simply teaching well, and that it leads to particular kinds of outcomes:

"... public, open to critique and evaluation, and in a form that others can build on ... in which faculty frame and systematically investigate questions related to student learning - the conditions under which it occurs, what it looks like, how to deepen it, and so forth - and do so with an eye not only to improving their own classroom but to advancing practice beyond it."   (emphasis added)

The information on this page has been collected for UW instructors in finding out more about how to engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning in the classes that they teach.

Where do I begin?

• Design
• Evidence
• Making It Public

Efforts to improve teaching and learning have prompted a wide range of challenging questions. How does active learning in large classes influence students' comprehension of the lecture? Does online discussion improve students' understanding of reading materials? What do writing assignments contribute to student learning in a course?

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning addresses questions such as these by systematically examining student learning. What has been discovered by others who have addressed this question? How can I identify answers to this question through my own teaching? How can answers that emerge contribute to the work of a broader community of scholars?

Once you have a question about student learning in mind, the next step is to determine how to address this question systematically through your teaching: The following set of guiding questions is designed to help you think through the process of systematically examining teaching and learning issues in your classroom:

• What have others done to address similar questions in their teaching?
• What assignments, activities, or other features of your course can help address your question?

• What indicators of student learning will be relevant for addressing your question? How can you systematically examine these learning indicators?
• How will you make sense of the student learning that you observe? How have others examined similar evidence of student learning?

• Who can provide an informed review or critique of your observations?
• How can you make your work available for others to adapt or extend?

Options for making work public include developing course portfolios for others to review, presenting at campus forums or conferences, and writing for publication.

For examples of UW faculty and TAs who are engaged in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, see the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Forum, including archives of the Annual Teaching and Learning Symposium.

For additional information and examples, see CIDR's collection of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Resources. To schedule a meeting with a CIDR consultant, call 206-543-6588, or contact us by email to arrange an appointment.