Building Faculty SoTL Skills Through a Multi- and Interdisciplinary Writing Community of Practice

Introduction

Can you imagine a mathematician reading and providing valuable feedback on a piece of theater pedagogy—or a sociologist truly engaging with physics education work? That is exactly what we experience as members of a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) community. What started as a series of workshops designed to help faculty members think about assessing student learning and designing SoTL research transformed into a sustained and vibrant writing and learning community that has stood the test of time.

The statement above is from a member of a long-running (since 2010) multi- and interdisciplinary SoTL writing community of faculty members that was organized by the Center for Educational Excellence (CEE), the development center for faculty across campus. This community meets monthly during the academic year to discuss its members’ SoTL project development and writing projects, and the output of the group has resulted in dozens of scholarly papers, presentations, chapters, and proposals (see Appendix 1 for a sample list of publications resulting from the SoTL group). This chapter provides a glimpse into the origins of the community; a detailed description of how the multi and interdisciplinary writing process functions; insights into how this community has evolved over the years to support sustainability; and a list of suggestions for other teaching and learning centers or institutions that would like to pursue similar initiatives on their campuses. The chapter is divided into major themes highlighting faculty members’ stories of their experiences and the writing group's impact both on the participants’ scholarship and the participants' professional development. We also discuss the numerous opportunities that have evolved as a result of an initiative that started with just a few workshops ten years ago.

Creating A Sotl Space

This fruitful collaborative group started as an effort to generate interest in teaching and learning research at the university. The University of San Diego (USD) is an independent, medium-sized Catholic institution that is primarily focused on undergraduate programs in Arts and Sciences, Business, and Engineering. USD also has several graduate programs including Peace Studies, Leadership and Educational Sciences, Nursing, and Law. As with many primarily undergraduate institutions, faculty members spend a large percentage of their time teaching, and they put an emphasis on innovation in the classroom. At the same time, demands for scholarship and academic excellence are steadily increasing. So, why is SoTL work not associated with necessary professional development for all faculty members? Why do so few institutions and faculty members see the value of supporting and investing resources in SoTL (Chick, 2018)?

Often, the answer is that there is simply a lack support to pursue SoTL or insufficient understanding of pedagogical research (Lueddeke, 2003). It is an unfortunate truth that SoTL work is often not highlighted or is seen as less impactful than more “traditional” disciplinary scholarship (McKinney, 2006; Webb, 2019). Pedagogy journals, despite being peer-reviewed and rigorous, do not typically appear on the lists provided by rank and tenure committees of what constitutes research publication leading to tenure and promotion (Segalla, 2008). Often junior faculty are discouraged from this type of research, and those that do want to engage in SoTL work do not necessarily have the training on SoTL or on how to apply for Human Subjects approval when the research subjects are their students. This potential lack of skills and awareness to take on SoTL projects (Weimer, 2006) can be a deterrent to the pursuit of SoTL work, but this is where the SoTL writing community comes in. The SoTL writing group provides a supportive community with opportunities for faculty members to develop an understanding of SoTL research and to engage in innovative and high-impact teaching and much-valued research (Gilpin & Liston, 2009). Furthermore, others have documented the potential for SoTL work to transform institutions and elevate the learning environment (Hutching, Huber, & Ciccone, 2011).