Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The concept of the Scholarship of Teaching and Leaning (SoTL) was first mooted in the mid-1980s by the American educator Ernest Boyer. His 1987 book College: The Undergraduate Experience in America proposed that while all university educators did not have to publish research, they should be “first-rate scholars.” This understanding of the academic role was further elaborated in his 1990 book, Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate.

Boyer’s view of academic roles was prompted by the dominant reward system in academe worldwide that gave research activities more recognition than teaching activities. To address this imbalance, he argued for four forms of scholarship that he considered equally valuable in higher education. The four scholarships, including elaborations by Eugene Rice, were (1) scholarship of discovery (original or blue ...