TILT creates opportunities and entry ways for faculty, instructors, staff, and students to engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) at SFU. We partner with instructors to make sense of their teaching practice using theory, reflection, and action. We build capacity through consultation, workshops, seminars, and communities of practice to help instructors actualize their ideas and values of teaching.

What is the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL)?

SoTL connects research to teaching and learning within your own teaching practice through systematic, evidence-based approaches. The goal is to understand, improve, and support student learning and educational experiences.

SoTL emphasizes inquiry, reflection, and the sharing of findings with others in your department, discipline, or outside of SFU.

Examples include:

• Continous improvement and professional growth: Assessing your own teaching practice: what is working or not working?
• SoTL encourages a scholarly approach to teaching, emphasizing evidence and research.
• Focus on Student Learning: While it examines teaching methods, SoTL's primary concern is understanding how and why students learn, what helps or hinders their learning, and how teaching practices impact learning outcomes.
• Discipline-Grounded: SoTL research is typically conducted within specific disciplinary contexts, recognizing that effective teaching practices may vary across fields.

What SoTL Is NOT:

• Simply reflecting on teaching experiences
• Sharing teaching tips or best practices without evidence
• One-time classroom experiments without broader implications
• Private knowledge that isn't shared with the academic community

The SoTL Continuum:

SoTL exists on a spectrum from scholarly teaching (thoughtful, well-informed practice) to scholarship of teaching and learning (systematic research that contributes new knowledge to the field of education).

This definition emphasizes SoTL as a bridge between teaching practice and educational research, making classroom-based inquiry a legitimate form of scholarship that can advance both individual teaching effectiveness and the broader understanding of how learning occurs.