The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning History Comes of Age: A New International Organization and Web Site/Newsletter

Abstract

IN THE FOUR DECADES since the creation of this journal, historians in North America have seen a steady increase in the materials available to assist them in more effectively sharing the fruits of their discipline with their students. In the 1990s this effort was a given new intensity by the introduction into academia of the concept of a scholarship of teaching and (SOTL). This notion helped bring to the exploration of pedagogical issues some of the prestige and resources that had previously been concentrated on more traditional research. Historians took part in the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and in history caucuses at the meetings of the newly formed International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL). They produced programmatic essays that emphasized the responsibility of professional historians to contribute to our understanding of learning in our discipline, the need to develop a more systematic understanding of these issues through studies that build upon one another, and the need to support conclusions with convincing evidence.2 The time has come to provide institutional support for these efforts and to link this work with that of historians throughout the world who are engaged in the study of teaching and learning history. Two new institutions are currently being