Improving the scholarship of teaching and learning

Abstract

A number of suggestions are offered through which the scholarship of teaching and learning may be improved. First a brief account of the general concept of scholarship is provided, an account which suggests that scholarship is a far from uncontested notion. Boyer's innovative discussion of the concept is briefly considered. A fuller account of the scholarship of teaching is then examined which suggests merging the scholarship of teaching with the paradigm of learning. Such a merger in effect creates a scholarship of action research into both teaching and learning, a merger which owes much to the early work of Dewey and Lewin and the later ideas of Schön on the epistemology of reflective practice. The main section of the paper outlines the ideas of Glassick and his colleagues in their production of a simple yet powerful evaluative framework designed to help assess scholarship in general. This is then adapted and promoted as a useful way of helping academics improve the scholarship of teaching. The major virtue of the Glassick framework is claimed to be its final emphasis on reflective critique, a process which would have us examine critically whether our scholarship is congruent with what we believe to be our major academic values.