Scholarship/Science of Teaching and Learning





Introduction
I view all people as lifelong learners and lifelong teachers.

Ongoing and lifelong learning are built into our physical and cognitive capabilities. Each of us learns as our brain processes new information from our senses and integrates this with information already stored in our brain.

In our every interaction with others, we function as a teacher and a learner. This starts even before we are born. For example, an unborn child’s brain becomes familiar with its mother’s voice cadence and tonality. And, of course, you are familiar with the infant child teaching his or her parents and other caregivers, as they teach the child.

Have you thought about the idea that every subconscious or conscious thought you have is “teaching” your brain by modifying its neural connections? This is a type of constructivism, building new knowledge and skills into and onto current knowledge and skills. For more about constructivism, see Gillespie (n.d.) and Mayer (1998). Quoting Richard Mayer:


 * Rather than seeing learning as the rote acquisition of knowledge, researchers have come to see learning as a process of sensemaking. Learners do not simply absorb, passively receive, or record objective knowledge that is “out there.” They actively construct and interpret knowledge by integrating new information and experiences into what they already know. [Bold added for emphasis.]

Constructivism is only one of many different learning theories (Moursund, 2007). Situated Learning Theory is another important example. Situated learning is a theory stating that what you learn is highly dependent on the situation in which you learn it. Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1989), in a seminal article on situated learning, discuss the connections between learning and the learning environment. Quoting from that article:

Recent investigations of learning, however, challenge this separating of what is learned from how it is learned and used. The activity in which knowledge is developed and deployed, it is now argued, is not separable from or ancillary to learning and cognition. Nor is it neutral. Rather, it is an integral part of what is learned. Situations might be said to co-produce knowledge through activity. Learning and cognition, it is now possible to argue, are fundamentally situated.

Through informal and formal education, study, and practice we can all improve our teaching and learning skills. The discipline of the study of improving teaching and learning skills is called the Science of Teaching and Learning, or the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. SoTL abbreviates both titles.

There are many different research and development areas included under the heading of SoTL. One of the most important is Transfer of Learning. We want students to retain their new knowledge and skills over time. We want them to transfer the knowledge and skills both to their future studies of the specific discipline in which they gained these knowledge and skills, and to other disciplines.

As an aside, research indicates that a rote learning approach (a memorize and regurgitate approach) tends to result in quite poor long-term retention. David Perkins and Gavriel Salomon (1992) provide an excellent introduction to transfer of learning. Quoting from their article:


 * Transfer of learning occurs when learning in one context or with one set of materials impacts on performance in another context or with other related materials. For example, learning to drive a car helps a person later to learn more quickly to drive a truck, learning mathematics prepares students to study physics, learning to get along with one's siblings may prepare one for getting along better with others, and experience playing chess might even make one a better strategic thinker in politics or business. Transfer is a key concept in education and learning theory because most formal education aspires to transfer. Usually the context of learning (classrooms, exercise books, tests, simple streamlined tasks) differs markedly from the ultimate contexts of application (in the home, on the job, within complex tasks). Consequently, the ends of education are not achieved unless transfer occurs. Transfer is all the more important in that it cannot be taken for granted. Abundant evidence shows that very often the hoped-for transfer from learning experiences does not occur.

Academic Disciplines
Each academic discipline or area of study can be defined by a combination of general ideas such as:


 * The types of problems, tasks, and activities it addresses.


 * Its accumulated accomplishments such as results, achievements, products, performances, scope, power, uses, impact on the societies of the world, and so on, and its methods of preserving and passing on this accumulation to current and future generations.


 * Its history, culture, and language, including notation and special vocabulary.


 * Its methods of teaching, learning, and assessment; its lower-order and higher-order knowledge and skills; and its critical thinking and understanding. What it does to preserve and sustain its work and pass it on to future generations.


 * Its tools, methodologies, and types of evidence and arguments used in solving problems, accomplishing tasks, and recording and sharing accumulated results.


 * The knowledge and skills that separate and distinguish among: a) a novice; b) a person who has a personally useful level of competence; c) a reasonably competent person, employable in the discipline; d) an expert; and e) a world-class expert.

Within a specific discipline, each of these bulleted items can be an area of serious research, development, and other scholarly activity. As an example, think about the last of the items. Undoubtedly you have heard about the idea of “viewing the world through rose-colored glasses.”

What might it mean to view the world through a specific discipline’s eyes? A specialist in music learns to view the world through music-colored glasses. A specialist in psychology learns to view the world through psychology-colored glasses. An interdisciplinary researcher in science might learn to view the world through a combination of computer, math, and science-colored glasses.

In all cases, this “viewing the world” is based on learning to think, communicate, solve problems, and apply the knowledge and skills of the discipline. When students learn math in elementary school, we want them to learn some specific math topics and we want them to learn to think in terms of this math as a way of viewing (dealing with) some of the problems and tasks they are encountering and will encounter in the world.

The Science/Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)
Quoting from the article, “Situating SoTL Within the Disciplines: Mathematics in the United States as a Case Study,” by Jacqueline Dewar and Curtis Bennett (2010):


 * Ernest Boyer (1990) introduced the phrase “scholarship of teaching” into the vocabulary of higher education in his book, Scholarship Reconsidered. He proposed that colleges and universities needed a fresh vision of scholarship in order to tap the full range of faculty talents and to encourage vital connections between academic institutions and their local communities. He labeled and described four types of scholarship: discovery, application, integration and teaching, and he discussed some of the characteristics of what is now called SoTL, but did not offer a fully developed definition that included peer review and making results public. While similar concepts had previously been discussed (Cross, 1986) and later critical distinctions between scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching surfaced (Richlin, 1993, 2001, 2003), as President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Boyer brought national and international attention to SoTL.


 * In 1998, the Carnegie Foundation instituted the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL, n.d.). CASTL brought together 140 scholars in six cohorts over nine years. The scholars worked on individual Scholarship of Teaching and Learning projects. Many are represented in the Carnegie Foundation Gallery of Teaching and Learning. See http://gallery.carnegiefoundation.org/gallery_of_tl/castl_he.html.

SoTL in All Levels of Education
Initially, SoTL was considered to be a higher education activity. Quoting from http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Scholarship+of+Teaching+and+Learning:


 * The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a growing movement in post-secondary education. SoTL is scholarly inquiry into student learning which advances the practice of teaching by making research findings public.


 * SoTL necessarily builds on many past traditions in higher education, including classroom and program assessment, K-12 action research, the reflective practice movement, peer review of teaching, traditional educational research, and faculty development efforts to enhance teaching and learning. Terms closely related to the scholarship of teaching and learning are good teaching (that which promotes student learning and desired outcomes and is recognized by student satisfaction, peer review, etc.) and scholarly teaching (in which teaching is regarded as an area of study and the teaching and learning knowledge base is regarded as an additional discipline in which to develop expertise).


 * Research methods in SoTL include reflection and analysis, interviews and focus groups, questionnaires and surveys, content analysis of text, secondary analysis of existing data, quasi-experiments (comparison of two sections of the same course), observational research, and case studies, among others. As with all scholarly study, evidence depends not only upon the research method chosen but the relevant disciplinary standards. Dissemination for impact among scholarly teachers may be local within the academic department, college or university, or may be in published, peer-reviewed form....


 * International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (ISSOTL) was founded in 2004 by a committee of 67 scholars from several countries and serves faculty members, staff, and students who care about teaching and learning as serious intellectual work.

To this brief overview could be added the point that almost all teachers at all levels are actively engaged in learning more about the teaching and learning of the disciplines they teach. This is part of their everyday job. More specifically, the overview should add the idea of action research, a research method often taught to preservice precollege teachers. Quoting from the Wikipedia:


 * Action research or participatory action research is a research initiated to solve an immediate problem or a reflective process of progressive problem solving led by individuals working with others in teams or as part of a "community of practice" to improve the way they address issues and solve problems. Action research involves the process of actively participating in an organization change situation whilst conducting research. Action research can also be undertaken by larger organizations or institutions, assisted or guided by professional researchers, with the aim of improving their strategies, practices and knowledge of the environments within which they practice. As designers and stakeholders, researchers work with others to propose a new course of action to help their community improve its work practices. Kurt Lewin, then a professor at MIT, first coined the term “action research” in 1944. In his 1946 paper, “Action research and minority problems,” he described action research as “a comparative research on the conditions and effects of various forms of social action and research leading to social action” that uses “a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle of planning, action and fact-finding about the result of the action.” See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_research.

Lesson study is another example of SoTL at the precollege level that might well be added to the overview.


 * Lesson study is a professional development process that Japanese teachers engage in to systematically examine their practice, with the goal of becoming more effective. This examination centers on teachers working collaboratively on a small number of "study lessons." Working on these study lessons involves planning, teaching, observing, and critiquing the lessons. To provide focus and direction to this work, the teachers select an overarching goal and related research question that they want to explore. This research question then serves to guide their work on all the study lessons. See http://www.tc.columbia.edu/lessonstudy/lessonstudy.html.

Big (Educational) Data and SoTL
Computer-assisted learning systems can capture (and preserve) a great deal of information about student learning. Over time, a huge database of information can be collected. Using modern methods developed for analyzing Big Data Sets, SoTL researchers can develop ways to improve computer-assisted learning.

Here is an article that captures the essence of such a project:


 * Straumsheim, Carl (11/12/2013). Delving into Digital Learning. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved 11/16/2013 from http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/11/12/carnegie-mellon-u-launches-initiative-improve-student-learning-technology.

Quoting from this article:


 * Carnegie Mellon University will open the world’s largest database on student learning to the public in an effort to identify best practices and standards for using technology in the classroom, the university announced on Monday. To support the open-access initiative, the institution will form a council of higher education leaders, education technology experts and industry representatives to distribute the data and guide the conversation.


 * The Science of Learning Center, known as LearnLab, has already collected more than 500,000 hours’ worth of student data since it initially received funding from the National Science Foundation about nine years ago, its director Ken Koedinger said. That number translates to about 200 million times when students of a variety of age groups and subject areas have clicked on a graph, typed an equation or solved a puzzle.

A theoretical foundation for this type of research and some reports about previous results are available at Pittsburg Science of Learning Center.

Some Major SoTL Challenges
Teachers tend to teach the way they were taught, and the curriculum content and methods are slow to change. This in itself is a major problem, especially in a rapidly changing world. We need an educational system that prepares students for life in which the totality of accumulated human knowledge is so vast as to be nearly beyond comprehension and is increasing very rapidly.

The pace of change in Information and Communication Technology—and the way that children tend to readily accommodate such change—is creating a schism between what goes on in classroom instruction and the world of children outside of the classroom.

Information and Communication Technology can solve and/or help to solve many of the problems that students currently study in school. Currently, our schools still focus mainly on “by hand” approaches to such problem solving. For example, “open computer, open connectivity” is not a common method of assessment in school, but is a common method children use in solving problems and accomplishing tasks outside of school.

It is clear that being a good teacher requires more than just having good knowledge and skills in the area being taught. Educators talk about the need for content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and general pedagogical knowledge. Quoting from the Intercultural Development Research Association:


 * The concept of pedagogical content knowledge is not new. The term gained renewed emphasis with Lee Shulman (1986), a teacher education researcher who was interested in expanding and improving knowledge on teaching and teacher preparation that, in his view, ignored questions dealing with the content of the lessons taught. He argued that developing general pedagogical skills was insufficient for preparing content teachers as was education that stressed only content knowledge. In his view, the key to distinguishing the knowledge base of teaching rested at the intersection of content and pedagogy (Shulman, 1986).


 * Shulman defined pedagogical content knowledge as teachers’ interpretations and transformations of subject-matter knowledge in the context of facilitating student learning. He further proposed several key elements of pedagogical content knowledge: (1) knowledge of representations of subject matter (content knowledge); (2) understanding of students’ conceptions of the subject and the learning and teaching implications that were associated with the specific subject matter; and (3) general pedagogical knowledge (or teaching strategies). To complete what he called the knowledge base for teaching, he included other elements: (4) curriculum knowledge; (5) knowledge of educational contexts; and (6) knowledge of the purposes of education (Shulman, 1987). To this conception of pedagogical content knowledge, others have contributed valuable insights on the importance and relevance of the linguistic and cultural characteristics of a diverse student population. See http://www.idra.org/IDRA_Newsletter/August_2009_Actionable_Knowledge/Pedagogical_Content_Knowledge/.

Here is a free 2014 book that may prove useful to many readers:

Benasssi, V., Overson, C., & Kakala, C. (2014). Applying science of learning in education. Infusing psychological science into the curriculum. Division 2. American Psychological Association. Retrieved 5/7/2015 from http://teachpsych.org/ebooks/asle2014/index.php. Quoting from the book:


 * The field of specialization known as the science of learning is not, in fact, one field. Science of learning is

a term that serves as an umbrella for many lines of research, theory, and application. A term with an even wider reach is Learning Sciences (Sawyer, 2006). The present book represents a sliver, albeit a substantial one, of the scholarship on the science of learning and its application in educational settings (Science of Instruction, Mayer 2011). Although much, but not all, of what is presented in this book is focused on learning in college and university settings, teachers of all academic levels may find the recommendations made by chapter authors of service.


 * The overarching theme of this book is on the interplay between the science of learning, the science of

instruction, and the science of assessment (Mayer, 2011). The science of learning is a systematic and empirical approach to understanding how people learn. More formally, Mayer (2011) defined the science of learning as the “scientific study of how people learn” (p. 3). The science of instruction (Mayer 2011), informed in part by the science of learning, is also on display throughout the book. Mayer defined the science of instruction as the “scientific study of how to help people learn” (p. 3). Finally, the assessment of student learning (e.g., learning, remembering, transferring knowledge) during and after instruction helps us determine the effectiveness of our instructional methods. Mayer defined the science of assessment as the “scientific study of how to determine what people know” (p.3).

Final Remarks
SoTL faces the challenge of rapid change in both the content to be taught as well as in the many new aids to teaching and learning. The pace of change in the totality of accumulated knowledge is truly astounding. Even within a narrow area of specialization, specialists in that area face a continuing challenge of keeping up in their fields.

SoTL also faces challenges in terms of content and teaching methodology even within specific disciplines. For example, in math education we have the Math Wars and in reading education we have the Reading Wars.

Learn more about the Math Wars at:


 * Math Education Wars. See http://iae-pedia.org/Math_Education_Wars.


 * Schoenfeld, A.H. (2004). Math Wars. In Johnson, B.C. & Boyd, W.L., eds. 2004 Politics of Education Yearbook. Retrieved 10/29/2012 from http://www-gse.berkeley.edu/faculty/ahschoenfeld/schoenfeld_mathwars.pdf.

Learn more about the Reading Wars at:


 * The Reading Wars. See http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/Reading_Wars.html.


 * Reading Wars: Phonics vs. Whole Language Reading Instruction. See http://www.readinghorizons.com/blog/post/2010/09/07/Reading-Wars-Phonics-vs-Whole-Language-Reading-Instruction.aspx.

The discipline of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the discipline of Cognitive Neuroscience are both rapidly changing and are important components of SoTL in each academic discipline. The 104-page free book, Creating an Appropriate 21st Century Education, addresses cognitive neuroscience and ICT in 21st century education (Sylwester and Moursund, 2012).

Suggested Reading from the Information Age Education Blog
Here is a sampling of Information Age Education Blog entries that address some of the SoTL-related challenges faced by our educational system.


 * 1) Computerization of Jobs. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/computerization-of-jobs.html.
 * 2) Important Ideas about 21st Century Education. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/important-ideas-about-21st-century-education.html.
 * 3) Research-based Content and Pedagogy in Math Education. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/research-based-content-and-pedagogy-in-math-education.html.
 * 4) Deep Insights into Problems with Our Educational System. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/deep-insights-into-problems-with-our-educational-system.html.
 * 5) National Academic Standards Versus Inequities in Funding Schools. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/national-academic-standards-versus-inequities-in-funding-schools.html.
 * 6) World Problems Identified by B. F. Skinner in 1971. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/world-problems-identified-by-b-f-skinner-in-1971.html.
 * 7) Effective Study Skills. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/effective-study-skills.html.
 * 8) Requiring Online Education in Virginia. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/requiring-online-education-in-virginia.html.
 * 9) The Academic Publishing System Is Broken. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/the-academic-publishing-system-is-broken.html.
 * 10) Personalizing Educational Content and Delivery. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/personalizing-educational-content-and-delivery.html.
 * 11) Supersized Online Courses. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/supersized-online-courses.html.
 * 12) Some Grand Global Challenges. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/some-grand-global-challenges.html.
 * 13) Is American Education in a State of Crisis? See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/is-american-education-in-a-state-of-crisis.html.
 * 14) A Game Changer in Higher Education. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/a-game-changer-in-higher-education.html.
 * 15) Retention of Knowledge and Skills from Education and Training. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/retention-of-knowledge-and-skills-from-education-and-training.html.
 * 16) Grand Challenge Problems in Education. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/grand-challenge-problems-in-education.html.
 * 17) A New Kind of Learner. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/a-new-kind-of-learner.html.
 * 18) ICTing Across the Curriculum. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/icting-across-the-curriculum.html.
 * 19) In the United States, One in Seven (and Well Over 20% of Children) Live in Poverty. See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/in-the-united-states-one-in-seven-and-well-over-20-of-children-live-in-poverty.html.
 * 20) Why Isn’t Schooling a Lot More Successful? See http://i-a-e.org/iae-blog/why-isnt-schooling-a-lot-more-successful.html.

Author or Authors
This page was created by David Moursund.