Victoria Myhand
This project is a comprehensive history of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning within the United States. I have been working with documents and visiting with noteworthy scholars who were involved in the foundation of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. We have been discussing memorable and pivotal moments during the foundation and establishment of SOTL over time, as well as specific instances which exemplify the learning culture SOTL strives to generate. I believe my project is quite serendipitous with this year’s conference theme. In discussing Toward a Learning Culture, it seems necessary to examine how the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning sprouted, and how the culture of learning and learners blossomed.
My research process involves conducting interviews with academics who were heavily involved in the SOTL implementation process. ISSOTL in History has been a fruitful resource in assisting me with contacting historians. During the 2018-2019 academic year I will be attending the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. I plan to interview important SOTL authors during my time abroad. A number of questions to engage my interviewees during our visits will reveal what key Scholarship pioneers believe led to this need for reform in how teachers teach and students learn. For this project focuses not only on what happened and when, but why.
This project is a perfect example of what the inclusive learning culture of connecting student learning to life and work experiences beyond the classroom looks like. I am an undergraduate student who relinquished instruction of a syllabus to take on a research project. However, this project is something I never could have achieved without previous experience in the classroom. My work here reflects my classroom experiences teaching me well enough so that I could take what I have learned throughout my university experience and master a project independently. In other words, this project is proof that an inclusive learning culture works.
This project focuses on the Scholarship’s beginnings in the United States, which may be very informative for Society members both foreign and domestic. My position as an undergraduate student of history makes me uniquely qualified to study and speak on this subject. Who better to discuss the present culture of learning than a pupil who is currently experiencing it? Where better to discuss how our learning culture has developed and can improve in the future than the environment of this conference?
