Research Opportunities: SoTL is research; quantifiable and rigorous research. More and more departments are counting SoTL publications toward decisions about tenure and promotion, though this is not yet universal.
Effective Teaching: By its very nature, SoTL directly impacts how effective your teaching is in terms of student learning. Engaging in SoTL will help you become a more effective teacher, as you become increasingly aware of your classroom practices and make strides toward systemic change. You will learn to focus your attention on continual assessments of your teaching practices.
Tenure & Promotion: Teaching effectively is one thing, but proving your effectiveness is quite another. SoTL makes it easy to demonstrate your practices in the classroom, and highlights your active interest in improving your teaching. Outcomes from SoTL research make natural components of teaching portfolios, which are often used in tenure & promotion decisions.
Renewal: Looking for new ways to examine or enhance student learning can help reinspire you as a teacher. For further inspiration, read: Teaching With Fire by S. Intrator and M. Scriber, 2003.
Barbara Moore
College of Business Administration
I am a 36-year veteran of teaching with 12 years experience at the public school level and 24 years at the college level. I believe it is imperative for students to learn the economic way of thinking and the application of economic theory in their lives. I want students to be able to analyze economic policy and h...
Alisha Janowsky
College of Sciences
A student should never leave a psychology course bored...period. My job is to teach human behavior—that cannot be boring! Like everyone else, students are naÏve psychologists with their own intuitions about why people act as they do. Whether teaching large classes, online classes, or small seminars,...
Melissa B. Frye
College of Business Administration
Today's workplace offers new challenges to students--the options are wider, the demands are greater, and the workplace is less structured. To be successful, students will need to meet the challenges of this type of working environment. A teacher is the guide who helps them prepare to meet these challenges by armin...
© 2012 Karen L. Smith Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning | Terms of Use | Back to Top
