Plenary - SOTL Travels: Furthering the potential of the scholarship of teaching and learning Joanna Renc-Roe (Central European University)

Despite some important recent conversations on the international character and inclusiveness of SOTL (e.g. Wang et al., 2011, Gunn et al. 2010), it is still often perceived as a concept or practice largely institutionalised in the Western, English-speaking university systems (with some notable exceptions). Mary Huber has asked a number of thought-provoking questions around how far the scholarship of teaching and learning can really travel, and what might happen to it when it gets somewhere new (Huber, 2009)?

This presentation was focused on a programme developed around SoTL that ran from 2007-2012. There were a range of issues that came up around whether this is a new form of knowledge and can it really travel internationally. The discussion around the whether this is a new form of knowledge varied dependent upon individual perspectives some felt it was others did not there was already much of this work happening within faculty with many undertaking research around teaching and learning although this was often not seen as valuable as other areas of research.

The issues around would this term travel were raised in terms of how SoTL is seen to be a very North American, Canadian, English term. When the term scholarship is translated in many other languages it means bursary and so when proposals were coming in for being involved in the programme many focused on needing a bursary to undertake work. There is therefore a need for a shared language. The speaker believes that there are some concepts that could help. There needs to be some normative concepts and most have heard of Boyer’s work although this is seen as aspirational. There does however need to be a focus on shared values. There need to be some generative concepts which means the forms of research do not need to be the same but others should be able to follow the process. The descriptive concepts need to ensure that the context can be clearly outlined for others and practical concepts about how.

The speaker then went onto to discuss how some activities can be used to enhance SoTL and these included research, conferences, summer schools and twinning centres. There is a need to publicise the activities much more.