The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in an Age of Accountability: Building Bridges

Abstract

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 administrative control. But while acknowledging both real and perceived tensions between these two movements, we also examine some of the ways and settings in which they are converging, featuring a number of international examples in which external quality and assessment mandates have been employed to support SoTL-like work. We look, too, at the roles that scholars of teaching and learning can play as mediators and brokers between the two movements, helping to translate accountability requirements into opportunities for improvement. In short we argue that these two movements present opportunities for each other. SoTL can contribute to what is, or should be, the central goal of accountability: ensuring and improving the quality of student learning. The accountability movement, for its part, can provide a new context for integrating and valuing SoTL as a force for positive change on campuses and beyond. Taken together, the two approaches can make meaningful contributions to higher learning today. The paper concludes with recommendations to the SoTL community for building bridges between the two movements.

Leading Up in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

“…Likewise, Simmons (2016) urges SoTL scholars to situate their influence beyond the institutional level to have an impact at the megalevel, where SoTL has the potential to inform decision-making that will shape the future political, social, and economic landscape of higher education (Bloch-Schulman, Conkling, Linkon, Manarin, & Perkins, 2016). Thus, in a zeitgeist that increasingly demands accountability for education funding, our colleagues remind us that SoTL not only has the potential to make a vital contribution to providing the evidence of quality that provincial and federal stakeholders demand (Bernstein, 2013;Gordon, 2010;Hutchings et al, 2013;Openo et al, 2017;Poole & Simmons, 2013), but also to critically challenge and transform current practices.…”

Chasing impact: The tale of three SoTL studies

“…However, there is also a concern shared by many that the current rise of accountability and performative narratives in higher education (Locke, 2014) can endanger nuanced, "inquiry-driven, improvement-focused practices" SoTL is known for (Hutchings et al, 2013, p. 35). Hutchings, Borin, Keesing-Styles, Martin, Michael, Scharff, Simkins, and Ismail (2013) further suggest that subjecting SoTL to rigid numbers-driven accountability requirements of output metrics can limit the scope of inquiry, which, ultimately, would harm students.…”

The SoTL Scaffold: Supporting Evidence-Based Teaching Practice in Educational Development

“…At the same time, educational development scholars have been identifying strategies for CTLs to consider new strategies, beyond the level of workshops or programming that would enable them to play a more intentional role in the cultivation, whether top‐down or bottom‐up, of an organizational culture that supports many of the same SoTL values (Cruz, ; Henderson, Beach, & Finkelstein, Thomas & Ribera, 2011). At this level of the SoTL scaffold, CTLs are not primarily providers of programs, but rather act as agents of change who build bridges across different functional, political, and anthropological divisions on their campuses (Hutchings et al, ). These bridges can be formal, such as the establishment of policy and procedures (e.g., faculty evaluation; general education; learning assessment) (Theall, ), but also informal, grassroots, or behind‐the‐scenes connections.…”