The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a rich forum where scholars from different fields and philosophical orientations find space to share their research on teaching and learning in higher education. Within this article, we share our individual and collective experiences of why we perceive phenomenology as a methodology well suited for a broad range of SoTL purposes. Phenomenology is a research approach that focuses on describing the common meaning of the lived experience of several individuals about a particular phenomenon. We discuss how phenomenology has informed our own SoTL research projects, exploring the experiences of faculty and undergraduates in higher education. We highlight the challenges and affordances that emerged from our use of this methodology. Phenomenology has motivated us to tell our stories of SoTL research and within those, to share the stories that faculty and students shared.

In this paper, we focus on the experience of faculty learning to do the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Our two studies uncovered similar threshold concepts in SoTL in two contrasting contexts; one study done in the United Kingdom with teaching-focused academics while the other study, done in North America, focussed on educational leaders at a researchintensive university. Both studies revealed similar ontological and epistemological transformations of learning and doing SoTL. Underpinning the results of these studies is the reality that educational leaders are situated within a complex cultural network of personal, professional, and financial tensions. There are two levels of institutional culture: university level and departmental level. But, institutional policies are only useful if also supported locally. This paper is of interest to those developing their expertise in supporting SoTL, as well as faculty on a teaching and scholarship career route.

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract