Building Faculty SoTL Skills Through a Multi- and Interdisciplinary Writing Community of Practice

Abstract

Cultivating a community of faculty to support Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) work at universities can be challenging. There are many obstacles to overcome—obstacles such as how to sustain such efforts over time. The Center for Educational Excellence set out to design a strategic plan designed to address certain barriers to SoTL work and to create a long-standing community of practice for a SoTL group of faculty members—a group that has lasted over nine years to date. This chapter outlines strategies employed over the years and the evolution of the interdisciplinary group from a learning community to community of practice. The stories of past and present members are included along with advice on how others may have successful programs at their universities.

Supporting faculty with SoTL through an intensive SoTL Scholars program

“…Much of the literature on SoTL programs is descriptive or provides educational developers with suggestions for developing their own. Many use learning community (LC) or community of practice (CoP) models (for example, Bailey et al, 2022;Sgoutas-Emch et al, 2020).…”

“…Much of the literature on SoTL programs is descriptive or provides educational developers with suggestions for developing their own. Many use learning community (LC) or community of practice (CoP) models (for example, Bailey et al., 2022; Sgoutas‐Emch et al., 2020). Although LCs and CoPs help develop a SoTL community, faculty new to SoTL struggle with having the skills and confidence to do SoTL (Dewar & Perkins, 2021; Miller‐Young et al., 2018) and need more targeted support for skill development.…”