The goal of the International Society
for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (IS-SOTL) is
to foster and disseminate inquiry on the factors that can best improve
and articulate post-secondary learning and teaching and to encourage
the application of the results broadly.
We recognize the importance of parallel efforts embedded in each discipline
and scholarly society and of parallel efforts for earlier levels of
education and will actively encourage their development.
We will actively encourage cross-disciplinary conversation to create
synergy across disciplines that will both enrich the efforts within
disciplines through new lines of inquiry and lead to insights and generalizations
that can apply across many disciplines.
We are especially interested in expediting the flow of new findings
and applications across national boundaries and in fostering collaboration
among scholars in different countries.
Consistent with the longstanding mission of higher education, the scholarship
of teaching and learning offers far-reaching possibilities for integrating
discovery, learning and public engagement. The International Society
has formed to further the emerging recognition of the scholarship of
teaching and learning as a powerful and integral component of higher
education’s mission and identity and to advocate for support,
review, recognition, and appropriate uses of scholarship of teaching
and learning.
The Inaugural Meeting of the International
Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is intended
to gather the membership and interested others to advance and direct
our Society’s mission and to share the leading scholarship from
around the globe.
The Meeting will be held October 21 – 24, 2004 in Bloomington,
Indiana USA, the home of Indiana University.
Future meetings will be hosted by other universities and institutions
in the United States and other nations. At least every fourth annual
meeting will be held outside the United States.
The scholarship of teaching and learning ultimately improves student learning and occurs when “our work as teachers
becomes public, peer-reviewed and critiqued, and exchanged with other members of our professional communities so
they, in turn, can build on our work. These are the qualities of all scholarship.”
Lee Shulman, President
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching