Increasing the Impact of SoTL: Two Sometimes Neglected Opportunities

Abstract

The most important function of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is to enhance student learning. There are numerous strategies to increase application and positive impact of our SoTL work on student learning. In this essay, I remind readers of two, sometimes neglected, strategies: 1. incorporating methods and measures in our SoTL studies to find and understand the processes and conditions at work and 2. doing all we can to share the results of relevant SoTL work directly with students so they can make use of the implications of SoTL findings. Our neglect of these two strategies in much SoTL work limits our impact. In this essay, I offer multiple ways and examples to implement these strategies. We need to remember to get at the „why‟ and the „how‟ in our SoTL projects as well as to share our results directly with our students and help them apply what we have learned.