What is The Scholarship of Teaching?

What is The Scholarship of Teaching?

What is The Scholarship of Teaching?


Boyer and the Scholarship of Teaching

Boyer, E. (1990) Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Princeton University Press, distinguished between four types of scholarship

  • Scholarship of Discovery
  • Scholarship of Integration
  • Scholarship of Application (Engagement)
  • Scholarship of Teaching

Discovery = "traditional" research.

Integration = research on the boundaries of various converging fields, placing research in its appropriate interdisciplinary context, and interpreting research into "the larger intellectual patterns."

Application = "service", and relates acquired knowledge to the larger community.

Teaching = teaching.

Scholarly activity needs to be:

  • Public
  • Susceptible to critical review and evaluation
  • Accessible for exchange and use by other members of one’s community


The scholarship of teaching

  • Includes active enquiry by teachers into their own practice…
  • ...that is documented i.e. subject to public review, e.g. in a teaching portfolio

A teaching portfolio is a collection of documents and artifacts, which document the author’s (best) practice in teaching and shows their mastery of the scholarship of teaching.


Further reading:

For a brief review of Boyer's seminal work see

http://www.uu.edu/centers/faculty/bookreviews/review.cfm?ID=9


Highly Recommended Reading

  • Kreber, C (2002)b Teaching Excellence, Teaching Expertise, and the Scholarship of Teaching. Innovative Higher Education 27(1): 5-23.[1]
  • Kreber C. & Cranton P. A. 2000 Exploring the Scholarship of Teaching The Journal of Higher Education 71, 4: 476-495
  • Trigwell K. 2001 Judging University Teaching International Journal for Academic Development 6, 1 65-73



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