Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Author

Become an OU student

Share this free course

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in STEM
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in STEM

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

1 Motivation for conducting SoTL

At the heart of SoTL is a focused, systematic investigation into pedagogical practice through one or more research questions and evidence-based analysis of student learning.

SoTL provides insights into teaching and learning, which moves educators toward the goal of improving student learning. SoTL helps to avoid what Shulman (1999) described as ‘pedagogical amnesia’; that is, the many things about teaching that you may forget from one term to the next. SoTL enables you to capture insights into your teaching in a way that allows you to reflect on those insights and to revisit them.

Activity 1 Why care about SoTL?

Timing: Allow approximately 5 minutes

As you watch this 1 minute 38 seconds video, make notes on why Gary Poole, The University of British Columbia, Canada, cares about SoTL as he talks to his colleague, Nicola Simmons from Brock University.

Download this video clip.Video player: author="dh9746" timestamp="20210423T111107+0100"
Copy this transcript to the clipboard
Print this transcript
Show transcript|Hide transcript
Video 1 Why care? Interview with Gary Poole
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).
To use this interactive functionality a free OU account is required. Sign in or register.
Interactive feature not available in single page view (see it in standard view).

Discussion

Gary Poole is passionate about SoTL. He says that he can’t stop doing SoTL because of his love of teaching and learning. He states that teaching and learning have been ingrained and are a part of him just as the shape of his earlobes. He conveys his pursuit of his love for teaching and learning through SoTL research, writing and having academic and intellectual conversations.

Gary believes that because of the fascination that academics have with research investigation, exploration and conversations, it provides great hope for the continual improvement of teaching and learning via SoTL.