Appropriate Use of Theory in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning as a Strategy for Institutional Development

Abstract

In this article we — as academic developers in two different faculties within a large, research-intensive university — discuss the scholarship of teaching and learning as a strategy for institutional improvement of teaching and learning. We focus on three related issues. Firstly, how can individual engagement in the scholarship of teaching and learning be related to patterns of communication within academia and subsequently have an effect on issues concerning academic identity and status; and how can this be related to an institutional strategy for development? Secondly, what is the appropriate use of educational theory when academic teachers make inquiries into their own teaching, considering that in most cases they are not scholars in education? Finally, while a higher education institution evolves to become gradually more scholarly in relation to teaching and learning, how could the evolving use of theory be supported and monitored? Related to this third issue we describe two cases from Lund University where this has been done. The first case describes how individual teachers can be systematically supported in a scholarship of teaching and learning-direction through pedagogical courses. The second case describes how a faculty uses a reward system for the same purpose.