Scholarly Reflections 25 Years of SoTL in Wisconsin

Introduction

Since 2000, the Wisconsin Teaching Fellows & Scholars (WTFS) program has introduced teaching faculty from across the Universities of Wisconsin (UWs) to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) or supported experienced scholars in expanding their work. In fact, during these twenty-five years, SoTL has become a core feature not only of the WTFS program but also of the Office of Professional and Instructional Development’s (OPID) two other signature programs: Faculty College and the Spring Conference. The scholarship of teaching and learning has thus emerged as a core practice for UWs’ faculty who are committed to the continuous improvement of their work as teachers.

Additionally, SoTL has become an important component of the research conducted by UWs’ faculty. This research has been shared not only through hundreds (or thousands?) of conference presentations, panel discussions, book chapters, and articles, but also through several edited collections, including Signature Pedagogies, More Signature Pedagogies, Gender in Teaching and Learning of Political Science, and Big Picture Pedagogy—each of which was edited by WTFS alumni and included contributions from other WTFS participants.

The SoTL movement has played an important role in reshaping pedagogical discourse within higher education over the past quarter century. One of the essential “moves” of SoTL is to redirect attention away from what teachers are doing to allow a clearer focus on how students are engaging in an educational process and thereby learning. Although SoTL can take many forms, its primary mode is for teachers to conduct research with their own students. It seems likely that carrying out just one SoTL project can transform an instructor’s perspective. The need to collect and analyze evidence of student learning–whatever method is employed–can give instructors insight into how and why students are learning in their courses, as opposed to focusing too narrowly on the what, or the content that they are teaching.

In 2012-13, when Ryan Martin, La Vonne Cornell-Swanson, and I conducted the “Wisconsin Teaching Fellows & Scholars Program Assessment Project,” we found that 81% of participants believed that the program helped them revise course designs to “place more emphasis on student learning.” Although many WTFS participants have gone on to present and publish their work, almost all alumni from 2000 to 2011 reported a positive impact, with just over twenty percent reporting a “transformational positive impact.”

Focusing the WTFS program on SoTL has had another interesting and no less important consequence. SoTL has supported many ongoing connections and collaborations across space and time, not only through the WTFS program but also through Faculty College and the OPID Spring Conference. Indeed, the Spring Conference has become something like a reunion of practitioners who have connected at various OPID events over the years, albeit a reunion that is perpetually welcoming newcomers.

Over the past quarter century, three OPID Directors (Lisa Kornetsky, La Vonne Cornell-Swanson, and Fay Akindes), all of whom contributed essays here, have through their truly outstanding leadership created a systemwide community of practice, which is the envy of many university systems around the nation and has also served as a model. They have been aided by an incredibly collaborative OPID Council and by several generations of innovative and passionate WTFS Co-Directors.

Over the past several months, I have had the tremendous pleasure of reviewing these approximately forty essays, each of them written by an alumnus of the WTFS program. If you have made it this far into my introduction, you likely have some interest in OPID, WTFS, or SoTL, and I encourage you to dip into this collection for inspiration during a challenging time for higher education in this country. In addition to browsing by specific authors, you can also use the tags to find narratives by WTFS participants from specific campuses and cohort years. Narratives by the OPID Directors, WTFS Co-Directors, and OPID Council members have also been tagged. Each participant has a unique story, but collectively these essays constitute a celebration of the scholarship of teaching and learning and the Wisconsin Teaching Fellows & Scholars program.

With tremendous gratitude to everyone in the OPID and WTFS community,

David J. Voelker

Frankenthal Family Professor of History and Humanities

University of Wisconsin-Green Bay

Wisconsin Teaching Fellow, 2006-07

Co-Director, Wisconsin Teaching Fellows & Scholars, 2013-19