Working Party on the Diversity of Academic Roles 2007
Scholarship of teaching and learning
In 1990, Ernest Boyer proposed, in his seminal paper “Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of
the Professoriate” 1, that “we [in higher education] must move beyond the tired old "teaching
versus research" debate and give the familiar and honorable term ‘scholarship’ a broader and
more capacious meaning.” Specifically, he proposed that scholarship should have four
separate yet overlapping meanings: the scholarship of discovery, the scholarship of
integration, the scholarship of application, and the scholarship of teaching. In this way he
sought in particular to bring greater recognition and regard to teaching, suggesting that
excellent teaching is marked by “the same habits of mind that characterise other types of
scholarly work”.
Lee Shulman, the president of the Carnegie Foundation, subsequently described scholarship
in all of the above categories as follows2:
“For an activity to be designated as scholarship, it should manifest at least three key
characteristics: It should be public, susceptible to critical review and evaluation, and
accessible for exchange and use by other members of one’s scholarly community. We thus
observe, with respect to all forms of scholarship, that they are acts of mind or spirit that have
been made public in some manner, have been subjected to peer review by members of one’s
intellectual or professional community, and can be cited, refuted, built upon, and shared
among members of that community. Scholarship properly communicated and critiqued serves
as the building blocks for knowledge growth in a field.”
Boyer’s articulation of a “scholarship of teaching” in higher education acted as a most
effective catalyst for thought and action. The decade following saw a surge of interest in
developing new approaches to teaching, evaluating outcomes and sharing the results with
other practitioners. A further coincident stimulus, coming out of the theoretical work of Piaget
and others, was the move towards student-centred approaches to teaching and learning.
Problem-based learning, inquiry-based learning, peer-assisted learning and many more
models were trialled in different environments, leading to the formation of new learning
communities, and as faculty became more expert in the evolving “scholarship of teaching”,
more rigorous methodology.
Despite the significant interest and activity which has been generated as a result of the Boyer
paper, the term “scholarship of teaching” was defined by Boyer only in vague terms. A clear
elaboration of what is meant by “scholarship of teaching and learning” has proved elusive, as
a perusal of the extensive literature attests. Nevertheless, there is now a general recognition
that sustained enquiry into tertiary teaching practice and students’ learning is a valid and
valued activity for academics to pursue. The Journal of Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning, launched in 20003, is one of many journals which act as vehicle to allow scholars of
teaching and learning to share their work in a public forum and so to build a knowledge base
for a growing scholarly community.
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Professor Mick Healey’s web site, launched in 2006, is a useful starting point to the literature
on the definition of the scholarship of teaching and learning:
www.glos.ac.uk/ceal/resources/litreview.cfm
His paper “The scholarship of teaching in higher education: an evolving idea” 4 sought to
review the evolution of the term 'scholarship of teaching' and to distinguish it from 'scholarly'
teaching and 'excellent' teaching. Table 1 of the Appendix taken from this paper shows a
range of statements from the literature about the scholarship of teaching (see Healey4).
These statements were considered by a group of 77 participants in workshops in the UK in
2000 on the topic of “Embedding the scholarship of teaching into the practice of developers
and higher education institutions”. Table 2 shows the extent to which the delegates agreed
with each statement.
In arriving at useful definitions and distinctions appropriate for the University of Queensland in
the context of teaching-focussed appointments, it is important to recognise that the
scholarship of teaching is an evolving concept and area of specialisation, and that we should
probably aim for consistency in our definitions with any consensus that exists internationally.
Specifically, we need to be able to distinguish among scholarly teaching, the scholarship of
teaching, and educational research.
An academic who is focussing on scholarship of teaching should reflect the knowledge
distinctions articulated by Lee Schulman: i) disciplinary content knowledge – i.e., they will
know their discipline very well and be able to use multiple forms of representing that
knowledge to different audiences; ii) knowledge of effective pedagogical practices – i.e., they
will know how to teach well in general using effective strategies; iii) they will have knowledge
of discipline specific pedagogical practices – i.e., they will have effective specific teaching
strategies relevant to their discipline and they will know how to make their disciplinary
knowledge accessible to learners. These three inter-related forms of knowledge should be
explicit and public. That is, the academic should communicate his/her knowledge so others
can model and begin adopting the practices. The academic undertaking scholarship of
teaching does not always have to be an expert practitioner but s/he will need to be aware of,
and able to convey to others, the features of good teaching in the discipline area.
Educational researchers, on the other hand, are involved in scholarship of discovery,
integration, application and teaching, they have a strong understanding of educational theory
and research, and they identify primarily with other researchers undertaking educational
research, broadly defined. In contrast, the teaching-focussed scholar has a more local
audience in mind than the general audience implied above. The audience for scholarship of
teaching and learning consists of other practitioners primarily, rather than other theorists. The
intent of the teaching-focussed scholar is to improve and understand practices in the context
of the specific disciplines rather than the application of different theories to develop general
explanatory frameworks.
Based on the foregoing and the associated literature, the following broad descriptions are
proposed for use at the University of Queensland.
Scholarly teaching
Scholarly teaching in a discipline involves all of the following:
 striving for a high level of proficiency in stimulating students and fostering
their learning in a variety of appropriate ways,
 being familiar with the latest ideas in one's subject,
 being informed by current ideas for teaching that subject,
 evaluating and reflecting on one's teaching practice and the student learning
which follows.
The scholarship of teaching
The scholarship of teaching develops from a basis of scholarly teaching in a discipline
but is not the same as excellent teaching. It involves exploring, testing, practicing and
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communicating improved pedagogies, learning processes, curricula, policies and
learning materials. It meets the following additional criteria in the context of promoting
student learning:
 It requires high levels of discipline-related expertise.
 It requires an understanding of who the learners are, how they learn and what
practices are most effective in the context of the discipline (pedagogical
content knowledge)
 It breaks new ground and is innovative
 It can be replicated and elaborated
 It is documented and subjected to peer review
Educational Research
Like other social science researchers, educational researchers are guided by
theoretical and methodological paradigms. A research academic in the field of
education deploys theoretical perspectives to understand educational practice.
Educational research includes psychological and philosophical inquiry; historical,
policy and cultural analysis; and empirical research on a range of areas including
learning and teaching processes, pedagogy and curriculum studies. Such research
tests the assumptions and worth of theory in terms of whether it provides adequate
explanations of the data and evidence. The aim of educational research is to expand
our understanding of all aspects of education and to contribute to theoretical debates
and developments in the area. The questions addressed are broader than those
focused on in the area of teaching innovation and involve stakeholders beyond the
context in which the innovation takes place (RAE Guidelines, 2008).
References
1. Boyer, Ernest. 1990. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton,
NJ: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
2. Shulman, L. 1998. Teacher portfolios: A theoretical activity. In N. Lyons (Ed.), With
portfolio in hand: Validating the new teacher professionalism (pp. 23-37). New York: Teachers
College Press.
3. Isaacson, R. 2000. Why JoSoTL and Why Now? JoSoTL 1, 1-7.
4. Healey, M (2003) The scholarship of teaching: issues around an evolving concept, Journal
on Excellence in College Teaching 14 (1/2), 5-26.
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