How Bioscientists Engage with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Response (SoTL)

I read with interest Anne Tierney’s letter (Tierney 2012) regarding bioscientist’s engagement with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and commend her for raising and encouraging discussion of this important issue.

Although I began my career in academia teaching ecology, I have, over a period of years, moved gradually into learning and teaching support. My current role includes teaching on an institutional Postgraduate Certificate/Masters in Academic Practice and supporting new and (increasingly) experienced staff with teaching, learning and assessment practices in modern higher education. One of the key purposes of this and similar courses at other universities is to engage colleagues at an early stage in their careers in the SoTL (see Kandlbinder & Peseta 2009). Evidence of scholarship of this type is a key recognition factor in the new UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education (UKPSF 2011). It is therefore likely to continue to be an important element of such courses. Whether this will foster effective and meaningful engagements with SoTL in new career academics in less than ten years (see Tierney 2012, for discussion of appropriate timescales) will be interesting to see.

One of the most rewarding aspects of my current role is the opportunity to work with colleagues who teach a very wide range of subjects. An interesting, and perhaps surprising, observation is the extent that differences in the teaching, learning and assessment cultures of different disciplines are expressed revealing an ‘innate’ use of different educational terminology. Kandlbinder & Peseta (2009) remind those that deliver this type of course to be sensitive to the different ways that discourses and languages of higher education are perceived and experienced. They highlight the principle of the reflective practitioner as a key concept in many such courses. A particular comment from a participant in their research highlighted to me the importance of language/communication differences, by suggesting that ‘[academics] from management, sciences and engineering find the language of reflection/reflective writing quite alien, being subjective and to an extent “touchy feely” at the initial stages’. I have anecdotal evidence, from tutees from the Faculty of Science and Engineering over the last eight years, suggesting that colleagues from science backgrounds have a more natural affinity with action research, which although not synonymous with reflective practice (McMahon 1999) involves a very similar cycle of activities and similar goals, i.e. a change and improvement of practice (Leitch & Day 2000). Action research is distinguished from reflective practice by a deliberate and planned intent, to solve a particular problem (or set of problems) using a coherent systematic and rigorous methodology. As McMahon (1999) puts it ‘reflective practice can be used to identify problems, action research can seek to provide solutions’. I think this may be why many of the papers submitted to Bioscience Education follow an action research approach, utilizing subject-discipline research skills and applying them to educational investigations that, then lead us to being able to use the appropriate language to communicate the educational outcomes.

Bioscience Education is a journal aimed at practitioners. The journal aspires to promote and share good practice among teachers in the biosciences. A quick overview of recent article titles highlights the practical nature of the content (see Langan 2011, for examples of the most viewed articles being technology based and highly applied in nature). One of the things that I value about Bioscience Education is the readability and accessibility of the articles. Although, I agree with Anne that there is a need for clarity about methodological approaches and for articles to demonstrate sound underlying, research, pedagogical and ethical principles, I hope that we can find a way of doing this without impinging upon the accessibility and practicability of the articles. Overall, I agree that there is a need for educational practitioners in the biosciences to have a better understanding and to make use of the terminology of educational research in our education language. However, I would not wish this to be a barrier to those who wish to begin their journey into educational research in publishing useful, pragmatic and practical examples of what works. To achieve this I suggest that we need to develop the dialogue that Anne has highlighted, both within our subject area and with colleagues from other subjects in our own institutions. By adopting a more collegial approach to engagement with SoTL we can working together and develop a better understanding of the appropriate language of educational research within our subject. As a journal we need to keep in mind the readership and the backgrounds of contributors. By continuing to provide a supportive and constructive editorial process, we can hopefully achieve the best of both worlds and publish articles that are sound in educational research terms but are interesting, accessible and ultimately useful to our readership.