Centre for the Advancement of the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning:

According to Boyer E.L. (1990), scholarship not only means engaging in original research, it also meas stepping back from one's investigation, looking for the connections, building bridges between theory and practice, and communicating this knowledge effectively to students. Thus to be scholar, means that knowledge is acquired through research, through synthesis, through practice and through teaching.

Teaching, when defined as scholarship, both educates and entices future scholars. The Scholarship of Teaching includes 3 basic qualities: (1) the work is public; (2) it is peer reviewed and critiqued; and (3) exchanged with other members of both the scholarly and general communities who build on the work.

Moreover,

[t]eaching is also a dynamic endeavor involving all the analogies, metaphors, and images that build bridges between the teacher's understanding and the student's learning. Pedagogical procedures must be carefully planned and continuously examined. These approaches must also stimulate active, not passive learning and encourage students to always be critical, creative thinkers and become life-long learners. 

Further, good teaching means that faculty, as scholars, are also learners. Thus, knowledge is not necessarily developed in a linear manner, but rather, the arrow of causality can, and frequently does, point in both directions.  Often, teachers transmit information that students are expected to memorize and then later regurgitate. Scholarly teaching however, means not only transmitting knowledge, but transforming and extending this knowledge as well. Through reading, classroom discussion, comments and questions posed by students, professors themselves will be pushed in creative new directions.

Boyer E.L., (1990). Chapter 2: Enlarging the perspective. In Boyer, E.L.  Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; .

For faculty within Ryerson University Faculty of Community Services (FCS), the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) includes initiatives, teaching and learning practices, curriculum development and, within each of these areas, active engagement with professional partners in the wider community.