Scholarship of Teaching & Learning

Overview

Commonly referred to by its acronym, SoTL, the scholarship of teaching and learning aims to improve student learning by discovering better ways to teach. Using rigorous qualitative and quantitative methods, instructors ask questions about teaching approaches and activities and collect evidence about their effectiveness. By sharing findings via conferences and publications, they contribute to the learning and teaching knowledge base, allowing other instructors and scholars to benefit from them.

Definitions of SoTL and its scope vary, extending from research projects on individual classrooms to cross-campus collaborations. There is also some overlap between SoTL and other forms of disciplinary scholarship on learning and teaching such as Disciplinary Based Education Research (DBER) and Scholarship of Educational Development (SoED). At its heart, SoTL provides instructors with the opportunity to reflect on their teaching and their students’ learning in a deep, sustained way. They become more familiar with the literature on teaching in their discipline and methods for assessing learning and gathering evidence of efficacy. Conducting SoTL research can enhance instructors’ teaching skills, strengthen their sense of satisfaction with teaching, and contribute to departmental efforts related to assessment and accreditation.

At the Searle Center, we support instructors at all career stages who would like to engage in SoTL by conducting research on learning and teaching in their own classrooms, programs, or departments. We work with instructors to develop research questions, select research methods, collect and analyze data, and write publishable manuscripts and conference abstracts. We are particularly interested in working with instructors who would like to address research questions related to equity and inclusion.

Programs

Our programs offer the Northwestern community a variety of ways to develop teaching skills, enhance student learning, and find community. The following programs will spark your curiosity about SoTL.

Learning & Teaching Guides

Guides created by or in collaboration with the Searle Center to help educators engage and advance Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.

Check back for forthcoming guides.

Further Resources

Our current recommendations for both foundational and leading-edge content related to SoTL.

Awards & Grants

Northwestern University recognizes educators and researchers doing innovative work. The following list includes opportunities which we believe dovetail with work related to SoTL.

• Provost Grants for Research in Humanities, Social Sciences and the Arts
  

Calendar of Events

Below are all of our upcoming events related to scholarship of teaching and learning

Contact Us

Reach out to us at teach@northwestern.edu.