What are the foundational moments of meaningful scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) projects? How do teacher-scholars collect, develop, and share useful insights about student learning? How do they work through the pinch points that frustrate, confuse, or elude many SoTL practitioners? By unpacking SoTL processes through rich narratives that illustrate what they look like, this collection offers inspiration to anyone at any stage of engagement with SoTL.This book takes discussions of SoTL to a new level. Its subtitle reflects the microscopic lenses SoTL processes can apply to student learning experiences to understand how they happen, what they look like, what they mean, and what we can do about them. Going beyond definitions, how-to, theory, and debates about methods and standards, the contributors offer a SoTL primer documenting how practitioners have intentionally thought through key moments in their work. These procedural vignettes present powerful examples of what doing SoTL looks like when done well.The authors represent a range of disciplines (the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and professions) and a mixture of familiar and unfamiliar names. Nancy Chick has selected contributions that compellingly illuminate why their authors focused on a particular critical moment, the questions they asked as they refined their approaches, and the theoretical and observational tools they employed to conduct their research. Each introduces a specific critical moment in doing SoTL, taking the reader through the author’s reflections, concerns, and choices in doing meaningful SoTL work.The aim is to support potential practitioners, inform educational developers who teach new SoTL practitioners, and inspire experienced SoTL scholars to reflect on their own practice. This is a compelling collection for anyone interested in practitioner reflection, intentional design, and advancing the field of SoTL and the quality of teaching and learning.
Nancy Chick is a SoTL scholar, scholarly teacher, and faculty developer. After earning her PhD in American literature from the University of Georgia and eventually Full Professor from the University of Wisconsin Colleges, she left full-time faculty work to focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning and faculty development first at Vanderbilt University, then the University of Calgary, and now at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida (USA). She has authored and co-authored numerous articles and book chapters on the results of SoTL projects and on the field of SoTL. She is also editor of SoTL in Action: Illuminating Critical Moments of Practice (Stylus, 2018), co-editor (with Jennifer C. Friberg) of Going Public Reconsidered: Engaging With the World Beyond Academe Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Stylus, 2022) and (with Regan A.R. Gurung & Aeron Haynie) of Exploring Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind (Stylus, 2009) and Exploring More Signature Pedagogies: Approaches to Teaching Disciplinary Habits of Mind (Stylus, 2012), and founding co-editor (with Gary Poole) of Teaching & Learning Inquiry, the journal of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning/ISSOTL (2011-2020). From 2019-22, she served on the ISSOTL Presidential team and (with Chng Huang Hoon) as ISSOTL Co-President during 2020-21 ― at the height of the pandemic.
James Rhem
