The scholarship of teaching and learning: challenges for Malaysian academics

Abstract

universities and the breadth of scientific competencies within the faculties and whether the intensity of collaboration between different fields produced greater scientific productivity. The findings failed to show that having researchers in scientific disciplinary sectors with highly intense collaboration or a broad range of competencies in a single discipline resulted in higher overall research productivity in the university. (56 ref)-

Growing a scholarship of teaching and learning institutionally

“…A fourth set of reasons lie in the difficulties in operationalising or implementing SoTL (Boshier 2009;Harland, Hussain, and Bakar 2014) and hence resulting in a sense of failure in SoTL not having brought about a change in the status of teaching in parity with research in institutions (Chalmers 2011;Kreber 2013).…”

“…One enduring significant thematic thread in the literature is around the definition and meaning of SoTL. Several authors point to SoTL as continuing to be an elusive and contested concept (Chalmers 2011;Harland, Hussain, and Bakar 2014;Kreber 2013;Nicholls 2004) and a 'hard sell' in higher education (Boshier 2009). Different reasons have been advanced for this.…”

“…That is, instead of beginning by attempting to define SoTL and then seeking to implement it (e.g. Harland, Hussain, and Bakar 2014), in this analysis, SoTL is deployed as a conceptual lens to examine the T&L initiatives and outcomes, while the meaning of SoTL itself is under construction and taken as tentative and evolving.…”

“…For Boshier (2009, 3), 'the vagueness of SoTL is reflected in terminology describing it' and he lists the multiples ways in which 'scholarship' and 'teaching' are connected and expressed in the SoTL literature. In the search for consensus, researchers have explored conceptions of SoTL by engaging different categories of academics on their experience and understanding of it (Harland, Hussain, and Bakar 2014;Kreber 2002Kreber , 2003Nicholls 2004).…”

Modalities of Faculty Engagement with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

“…Tierney (2017) speculates that this is due in part to the fact that faculty and staff receive little formal training on how to engage in SoTL research, so they default to their disciplinary training. This lack of formal training, may contribute to frustration on the part of faculty and staff who wish to engage in SoTL (Billot et al, 2017;Harland et al, 2014;Brownell & Tanner, 2012). This frustration stems from the fact that faculty and staff, who are experts in their respective fields, are novices in SoTL but unrealistically, expect a high degree of competence when engaging with SoTL literature (Harland et al, 2014;Simmons et al, 2013).…”