The deceptive simplicity of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Sat uncomfortably in a self-folding theatre chair, I watched Oliver Lowe of the Chartered ABS express how difficult it is to speak to an audience, spending no more than 20 seconds on each slide. I was at the Learning, Teaching and Student Experience (LTSE) conference in the late spring of 2025, and we were about to launch into a Pecha Kucha session, a 6 minute 40 second talk with 20 slides, using visual impact rather than text. As Oliver pointed out, the format is daunting really, and I wondered why I had submitted for this particularly exposing trial. I remembered that I had decided to hand draw my illustrations, a surprisingly reckless strategy in hindsight. While I pondered my impending fate with some trepidation, I listened to the first speaker introduce the subject of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The problem is, she said, that SoTL is so poorly defined. How might we expect academics to produce SoTL when no one can agree what it is. A good point, and not the first time it had been mentioned in the conference. Her talk went by in an exciting flash, and then it was my turn.

You know what? It wasn't so bad, and afterwards, I had plenty of conversations about my topic (the research-teaching nexus) with interested colleagues over coffee.

That short, impactful presentation did its job. That, for me, is at the heart of SoTL - the sharing and improvement of our teaching experiences. Why do we need to define SoTL anyway? But, if the practice of SoTL is so self-evidently easy, why is there such an audible demand for a definition?

I believe the problem is our self-limiting imagination when it comes to 'what counts' as valuable scholarly outputs. Or perhaps we are unable or unwilling to conceive of an anything goes approach to educational communication? The research analogue narrative is the concept that educational focussed academics must conform to the well-established culture of research. But how can education focussed academics be distinct from other academic specialisations if they do the same thing? And if we are all doing the same thing, is there any point making a distinction by having learning and teaching career tracks?

In this blog, I will place SoTL within the wider framework of scholarship and point out its relationship with the new kid on the block: research.

I hope to point out that as a part of the wider discipline of scholarship, SoTL has key differences to traditional research. It is these differences that make its apparent simplicity so difficult to grasp. Ultimately, academics wishing to work on the educational side of the academic venture will often encounter the buffeting experience of transition. But this is a stealthy transition, because it is not always sought for or expected.

Ernest Boyer really challenged the Academy in 1990 when he published his book Scholarship Reconsidered. In this work, Boyer described the recent rise of research as the highest priority in universities since WWII. Prior to this, universities in the USA had focussed more on teaching and civic tasks, as had the other universities around the world. He argued that while research is important, a broader approach was needed - higher education had become unbalanced. His work was highly influential, globally, and some rebalancing has indeed happened. Boyer's conception of medieval scholarship, a far more ancient activity than research, which is around 150 years old, was divided into four categories. The scholarship of discovery is generally aligned to research. The scholarship of integration refers to a broader approach, bringing disciplines or traditions and approaches together, while the scholarship of application concerns itself with real world problems. The final scholarship, that of teaching, is concerned with inquiries into our own teaching practice; this later became known as SoTL.

I think this brief summary is useful because colloquially academics tend to refer either to research or scholarship, and these words have got quite mixed up. Technically, research is a narrowly focused subset of scholarship, a much broader and expansive concept aimed at developing students more holisticially. SoTL is, equally, a small part of this wider venture. There is no hierarchy, all the components of scholarship collaborate for our shared academic goals.

How is it then that SoTL continues to elude understanding?

I believe this is because, prior to Boyer's recording of HE, SoTL had disappeared from the academic map. Research came to dominate and, in fact, became synonymous with scholarship. Although SoTL has reemerged, we often lack the language to describe it. For most academics, scholarly outputs are about peer reviewed journal articles, usually in quite specific journals. The idea of a blog, opinion piece, podcast or new case study seems incongrous. It has become difficult to imagine a different kind of output that has the same value, and the debate is too often about what counts.

For SoTL, everything counts, but this is not a free ticket to produce anything that comes to mind. The quality assessment is still important, but we are building our lexicon of words to describe what quality means. This means we have the freedom to define and justify what quality is. Peer review is a foundational requirement here, but we might also consider 'who is the audience for this work?'. Is your output - a research poster or a podcast - going to attract that audience?

One approach I like is to consider SoTL as one's practice made public (is that too close to a definition?). Although many have taken issue with this approach, I like it because it contradicts how we have come to think of research (one's theories behind a paywall?). SoTL can also include journal articles, but the idea of doing something very different can expedite this transition, even if one comes back to articles in the end.

Definitions are unhelpful until we recognise that becoming an education focussed academic is a transition for most of us. Especially, those of us with a background in traditional research. Engaging with a more pluralistic approach to our own practice will feel alien until our transition is complete.

How can we do this?

Engaging in professional development, like the CMBE scheme, is a good way to embrace education as our main focus. Another key strategy is to integrate our teaching and scholarship, investigate our own practice, and become curious about how to improve it.

Interested in learning more about SoTL?

As part of our new range of CMBE community meetings, Dr Offord is running two free to attend, SoTL focused sessions:

SoTL in practice: What it is, what it isn't, and how to get started - 17 February 2026, 12.00-13.00, online

SoTL in practice: What can I do? - 19 February 2026, 13.00 - 14.30, online