One of the most serious challenges facing higher education today is the erosion of academic culture--a declining sense that faculty form a community whose members reflect, deliberate, and make decisions together in the name of a shared educational vision. Our experience with Gonzaga University's Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)…

In their essay, Patricia O'Connell Killen and Eugene Gallagher focus on the scholarship of teaching and learning in theology and religion, which, they say, is "identifiable" though "varied," and "exhibits standards of excellence recognizable in other forms of scholarship." Their purpose is descriptive, in large part, to share what they have…

In recent years, as pressures for accountability have increased in higher education, some members of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) community may worry that the inquiry-based, improvement-focused practices they advocate could be put at risk by easy-to-administer, one-size-fits-all forms of assessment, quality assurance, and…

This chapter looks at the scholarship of teaching and learning as one development among many over the last 25 years, arguing that it is best understood not as a discrete new model or approach but as a habit of mind and set of practices that contribute to a culture in which other changes and developments can thrive. By engaging faculty from a wide…

As the scholarship of teaching and learning matures as a field, the place of theory has garnered growing attention. Educational research and the learning sciences can certainly contribute, but professors who view their classrooms as sites for inquiry draw from a wide range and variety of theoretical foundations. With their diverse efforts in view,…

This essay posits the emergence of a "teaching commons"--a conceptual space in which communities of educators committed to inquiry and innovation come together to exchange ideas about teaching and learning and use them to meet the challenges of educating students. The October gathering of the International Society for the Scholarship of…

Reviews programs such as the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and literature on the scholarship of teaching at the higher education level. Suggests that the scholarship of teaching is not synonymous with excellent teaching, but requires faculty to "go meta," to systematically investigate questions of student learning.…

There are many ways to improve the quality of education, but it is believed that the scholarship of teaching and learning holds special promise. The scholarship of teaching and learning invites faculty from all disciplines and fields to identify and explore interesting questions in their own teaching--and, especially, in their students'…

A Carnegie Foundation researcher has been exploring the different forums for work on teaching and learning in higher education, and has uncovered an array of such occasions, bringing faculty together by department or discipline, across the campus, and in national networks and scholarly communities. Energetic conversations and communities have…

In 1998, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching launched an initiative known as the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL). This bibliography was complied early in the project to establish a baseline against which progress in the higher education arena might be gauged at the end of its current 5-year…

Asked seven faculty members who have participated in a teaching initiative at The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning to write case studies about ethical issues they confronted in their work. Three themes surfaced repeatedly: (1) sharing student work; (2) choosing methods; and (3) the ethics of bad news. (SLD)

This monograph explores practical and theoretical issues in use of case studies for college faculty to reflect on and improve instruction. Six chapters: (1) describe teaching case studies, with an overview of how and why they are used; (2) explore the rationale for their use within the frameworks of scholarship and professional development; (3)…