Toward a New Creative Scholarship of Educational Development: The Teaching and Learning Project and an Opening to Discourse

Abstract

This invited essay of To Improve the Academy's special feature on Creative Scholarship presents one example of creative scholarship in educational development as a forward to other forms and approaches in the special feature. This example, the Teaching and Learning Project, merges documentary and art photography traditions with faculty consultation. Following a review of the literatures of visual interpretation and instructional consultation, along with their intersection, the essay presents the Teaching and Learning Project in three ways: (1) as images, analyzed using the disciplinary grounding of the visual arts; (2) as a consultation methodology and an educational development practice; and (3) as a research project using a social science-based approach (grounded theory) exploring the experience of the subjects photographed. Finally, as a segue to the rest of the TIA special feature, this invited essay addresses the transformative nature of creative scholarship and its implications for the field of educational development.