The SoTL Guide: (Re)Orienting the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Jessie Moore
Dear SoTL Colleagues,
I’m delighted to announce the publication of a new book in the Center for Engaged Learning Open Access Book Series:
The SoTL Guide
(Re)Orienting the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
by Nancy L. Chick, Peter Felten,
and Katarina Mårtensson
Read for Free at https://doi.org/10.36284/celelon.oa10
The SoTL Guide is a practical, accessible, and engaging book that explicitly guides readers through clear steps to develop their own scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project.
The authors invite readers to share an expansive and inclusive view of what “doing SoTL” might mean, which they see as beginning before even thinking about a project and extending well after a project is “finished.”
The book is also more than a step-by-step manual for doing SoTL; it will help readers more broadly understand what SoTL is and does, and why. The book explores the important, intermediate aspect of improvement in SoTL: the improvement of oneself as a professional academic teacher, of one’s teaching practices, and most importantly of one’s students’ learning. The authors argue for the important “going public” part of SoTL as an act of good will and generosity—as potential for collective improvement.
What SoTL Scholars are Saying about The SoTL Guide
“Whether you’re new to the scholarship of teaching and learning or an old hand, this book should be on your (virtual) shelf. Shaped by the experience of three of the field’s most thoughtful—and welcoming—practitioners, it brings together examples and insights from the last several decades while also holding up an ambitious vision for future work, work with the potential for changing the culture of higher education itself. In short, The SoTL Guide is a gift from the field to the field, and a great pleasure to read.”
— Pat Hutchings, Senior Scholar, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA), and Senior Scholar, Bay View Alliance (BVA)
“The SoTL Guide is much more than a manual—it is an invitation to rediscover the human, ethical, and transformative essence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Chick, Felten, and Mårtensson weave wisdom, humility, and relational scholarship into a generous roadmap that connects inquiry, identity, and community. This book reorients SoTL toward its deepest purpose: to cultivate meaning, dignity, and public good in higher education. For those of us in the Global South, it resonates as a call to make SoTL a collective act of care and justice.”
— Oscar Jerez Yañez, Associate Professor in the Department of Health Sciences Education and Director of the Teaching and Learning Center, School of Medicine, University of Chile
The SoTL Guide is published in partnership with Parlor Press, allowing readers to purchase print and ePub versions of the book. Follow the link on the book site to explore these additional reading options.
About the Series
The Center for Engaged Learning (CEL) Open Access Book Series features concise, peer-reviewed books (both authored books and edited collections) for a multi-disciplinary, international, higher education audience interested in research-informed engaged learning practices.
CEL is committed to making these publications freely available to a global audience at no cost to authors. All our open access books are published under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Books are hosted as PDF texts on the Center for Engaged Learning’s website and are paired with additional open-access resources (e.g., videos, discussion questions, worksheets, etc.).
Thank you to Nancy, Peter, and Katarina for The SoTL Guide! It’s a fabulous addition to the CEL Open Access Book Series and to SoTL.
Happy reading to all!
All the best,
Jessie
Jessie L. Moore, PhD (she/her)
Director, Center for Engaged Learning
Professor, Professional Writing & Rhetoric
Elon University, North Carolina
(O) 336.278.5649 | www.jessiemoore.net
Series Co-Editor, Series on Engaged Learning and Teaching
Series Co-Editor, Center for Engaged Learning Open Access Book Series
Co-Editor, Teaching & Learning Inquiry (ISSOTL’s Journal)