Engaging With and Navigating the Many Dimensions of SoTL

SoTL is an area of scholarly activity that is multidisciplinary and multidimensional, which many faculty find rewarding. But for individuals newer to SoTL or looking at potentially major shifts in the type of SoTL projects they work on, these same aspects can be very unsettling. 

My first SoTL project focused on integrative learning in the context of upper-level undergraduate biochemistry. It was part of a larger group of projects focused on integrative learning across a wide range of disciplines that was the overarching theme for my cohort of Carnegie Scholars. While there were some overlaps with my knowledge of biochemistry and similarities to the chemistry education research I had been drawing on in my own teaching, there were also some important differences that I became more aware of as I interacted with other members of my cohort who came from different disciplines. Facilitating SoTL workshops for faculty involved in a national STEM education curricular reform project also led me to think more about the various dimensions that can be involved in SoTL and develop some of the major concepts in the chapter I wrote for the volume Becoming a SoTL Scholar.

This session will look at some of the different dimensions that can characterize the SoTL work an individual engages in: the relationship to disciplinary knowledge, the question of controls, focusing on a single discipline vs. more interdisciplinary work vs. transdisciplinary projects, and the degree to which collaboration is involved. My intent is to offer some guidelines on how interested faculty might choose to navigate some of the dimensions most relevant to their SoTL projects. Time for individual reflection will be part of this session to allow participants to connect the ideas I present with the unique characteristics of their personal SoTL work.

• 

  Matt Fisher, Ph.D.

  Professor of Chemistry, Saint Vincent College (Pennsylvania, United States)

  Matt Fisher is Professor of Chemistry at Saint Vincent College where he served in past years as department chair and director of the College’s faculty development program. He has been a senior fellow with the National Center for Science and Civic Engagement, where he coordinated NCSCE’s efforts in SoTL in the context of its signature project Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) and serves as co-editor-in-chief for the Center’s journal Science Education and Civic Engagement: An International Journal. Matt was a 2005 Carnegie Scholar and has given presentations and workshops and published on integrative learning and SoTL. With Jacqueline Dewar and Curtis Bennett he co-authored The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Guide for Scientists and Engineers; more recently he contributed the chapter “Guiding Principles for STEM Faculty Interested in SoTL” to Becoming a SoTL Scholar. Matt has been recognized with the ACS-CEI Award for Incorporating Sustainability into Chemistry Education, the Thoburn Excellence in Teaching Award from Saint Vincent College, and was named an American Chemical Society Fellow in part for his contributions to SoTL within chemistry. He received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from Temple University in 1982 and a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990.