A Roadmap towards Cultivating a SoTL Community of Practice
Hispanic Studies, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Warwick
Italian Studies, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, University of Warwick
ABSTRACT
Our paper is a reflection on the experience of two years of developing and supporting contexts of scholarship. The paper will specifically focus on the organization of a pedagogy reading group and on considerations about the development of scholarship for teaching-focussed colleagues which arose in a School-wide meeting on Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).
The reflection will be a way to take stock on the experience of the reading group stressing the opportunities and positive outcomes stemmed by it, while also pinpointing critical aspects around participation and the complexity to apply some of the readings’ pedagogic principles within the constraints of university policy.
The paper will also highlight unresolved issues around diversity, workloads, limited awareness of SoTL and temporary contracts that impact on the development of the teaching scholarship. Finally, it will suggest ways forward to keep developing SoTL and make it more visible and relevant at School and university level.
KEYWORDS: scholarship of teaching and learning, community of practice, reading group, collaboration, professional development.
INTRODUCTION
When we both started our journey as co-leads of Teaching and Learning in our department, one of our main priorities was the enhancement of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and the provision of support to teaching staff, including PhD students who teach. The reasons for this are numerous. First of all, this coincided with some of the goals of our university’s education strategy, which has a strong focus on disciplinary and teaching excellence, as well as excellence in pedagogy. In order to achieve such goals, the strategy document states that it is necessary to engage in ‘discipline-related scholarship and peer exchange for developing best practice in teaching and learning nationally and internationally’ (Warwick University, 2019). Consequently, both scholarship and SoTL are crucial requirements for academic career development and in the promotion criteria for staff with teaching focussed contracts. This is not surprising given that the concept of SoTL has been increasingly used as a tool to evidence excellence in teaching (Kreber, 2002; McEwan, 2022).
However, despite this increased relevance of the field, it still tends to be forgotten or absent in many cases from workloads and progress review discussions, or simply poorly understood. Therefore, we were seeking to shift the focus and make SoTL more present and visible across our department, recognising in this way, much of the work already done by colleagues in teaching focused contracts. In so doing, we were ultimately keen on exploring the power of SoTL in breaking down some sectional and hierarchical barriers by bringing together colleagues from the different sections that form our School of Modern Languages and Cultures (this includes French Studies, German Studies, Hispanic Studies, Italian Studies, the Language Centre, and Translation Studies). Thus, our aim here is to share our roadmap for the enhancement of SoTL in our department. By discussing our priorities and goals, as well as reflecting on our challenges and outcomes so far, we hope to encourage and assist academic staff in similar departmental teaching and learning roles who are considering ways of enhancing and supporting SoTL research and development.
CONTEXT AND INSPIRATION
There has been increasing institutional support towards scholarship, SoTL and teaching focussed staff in the past few years, thanks to the intense work of different groups across our university such as the Warwick International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA), an institutional academy of educators for staff and students engaged in the advancement of learning and teaching excellence. In particular, one of its many learning circles, the Teaching Recognition and Reward group, has focused on achieving parity of research and teaching, among many other initiatives. Similarly, the Academic Development Centre has dedicated many events and resources to support SoTL across the institution, particularly their ‘Cultivate’ programme, an open access series of events and resources to support learning, teaching, and assessment.
Beyond our institution, we have found inspiration in the work carried out by Sascha Stollhans and Oranna Speicher, particularly their panel entitled ‘Locating Modern Languages in Higher Education institutions: potential for collaboration and joint pedagogical research’ at the conference ‘Where are we now? The Location of Modern Languages and Cultures’, which took place in Durham University in April 2023. The rich discussions and exchange of ideas served as a catalyst for some of the initiatives we explore here. Finally, we also need to acknowledge The Language Scholar and their ‘Manifesto for the Scholarship of Language Teaching and Learning’ (Ding et al., 2018). All these initiatives made us aware that more SoTL support and engagement were needed locally, at a micro level: how can we introduce and cultivate sustainable SoTL in our disciplinary community?
We first noticed that, while many of the teaching-focused staff were already involved in SoTL either by ‘reflecting critically on practice; using ideas from the literature or contributing to the literature’ (Baume and Popovic, 2016, p.6), this was mainly done in isolation, without much visibility or support. SoTL research tends to be a solo act, conducted by an individual educator. However, Shulman (2004) argues that SoTL should rather be viewed as a collaborative activity or as a communal property, where we engage with others to improve our teaching as well as students learning and experience.
Scholars have stressed the potential power of communities engaged in SoTL and the paramount role of departments in building capacity and establishing support structures (Felten, 2013; Fanghanel et al., 2015; Healey and Matthews, 2017; Bailey et al., 2022). We therefore sought to create a SoTL community of practice, understood as a group of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly (Wenger, 1998, p.73). This community would encourage collaboration and reduce isolation, providing a supportive atmosphere or environment for these activities, following the model of Faculty Learning Communities (FLC) developed by Cox (2003). Given that SoTL is very much about thinking, talking, reading, and writing about our teaching practices, we decided to focus on the three first actions as a starting point.
READING, THINKING, AND TALKING TOGETHER: A PEDAGOGY READING CLUB
The first initiative taken to develop a community of practice was the foundation of a reading group. We started it in the academic year 2022-23 and the reading group has been running now for the second academic year, reaching seven meetings in total. The pedagogy reading group has been open to all colleagues in the SMLC and Language Centre, including PhD students who were teaching assistants who rarely engage with SoTL ‘even if they have substantial teaching assistant responsibilities, as emphasis is placed on disciplinary knowledge’ (Webb and Tierney, 2019, p.614). The choice of the readings has been focused on the latest debates in pedagogy and aligned to the above-mentioned Warwick priorities and education strategy (e.g. inclusion, internationalisation, curriculum development and assessment). The readings were all articles or book chapters and were suggested by us as organisers and colleagues alike. They covered the following topics: decolonising modern languages (D’Argenio and Chant, 2021; Ford and Santos, 2022); differences in higher education pedagogy (Burke, 2017); ethnography and the YA (Dasli and Sangster, 2021); trigger warnings (Inside Highered Ed, 2014); authentic assessment (McArthur, 2022); education to sustainable development (De La Fuente, 2022); critical pedagogy (Seal and Smith, 2021). The aim of the reading group was twofold. The first was to support professional development and initiate conversations around current themes in pedagogy of teaching and learning that could lead to small teaching changes, that is, changes occurring in ‘how we design our courses, conduct our classrooms and communicate with our students’ (Lang, 2021, p.5). The second was to help colleagues in view of applying for promotion and Advance HE fellowships to engage with scholarship.
In 2022-23 the reading group took place exclusively online on MS Teams on Wednesday and Friday afternoons at different times to let colleagues with different teaching schedules be able to participate. In 2023-24 we have been holding hybrid meetings in order to foster more community building, but without excluding colleagues who could not be on campus. Information about date and time of the appointments and the readings were circulated on the Moodle Teaching and Learning page roughly three weeks in advance. The readings were stored in that same page in a specific folder so they could be available also after the reading group. The average of attendees was 7-8 each session.
The meetings were usually introduced by a short reflection made by one of us organisers, who during the following discussion acted as a moderator, and then open to everyone’s contribution. Similarly to Cave and Clandinin (2007), we only assigned the articles as pre-session readings and did not provide in advance guiding questions, which seems to be the most common modality in the literature available on book clubs as professional development (Coria-Navi and Moncrieff; Cooper, 2018; Fitzgerlad and Carpendale, 2022; Landry, Richard and Layou, 2022). As an informal occasion for professional development, we preferred not to add the pressure of any additional preparation and allow members to freely ‘interweave their personal interpretations of the text’ (Grenier et al., 2022, p.493). The readings provided an opportunity to reflect on teaching practices and ‘frequently included stories and reflections from the group members’ experiences, and often resulted in the development of useful practical strategies that emerged from the conversations’ (Cave and Clandinin, 2007, p.366-67). Several of the following reflections on this reading group experience will resonate with the findings of Coria-Navi and Moncrieff (2018), however one of the aims of this paper is also to analyse the challenges that emerged from the reading group.
Among the positive outcomes, there is without any doubt community building. The reading group appeared to be the only space in SMLC where colleagues could discuss pedagogy without being constrained by university policies and regulations. Although we hold regular cross-school teaching and learning meetings, they are focused on language teaching and therefore involve only a limited number of colleagues. In addition to this, the teaching and learning meetings increasingly revolve around practicalities such as organising exams or providing common solutions across sections to issues arising from everyday teaching, in response to students’ requests or university policy changes. Without diminishing the importance of such meetings, they are seldom devoted to reflecting on pedagogy and on teaching and learning innovations. Contrary to what Coria-Navi and Moncrieff (2018) state for their specific case, there is an abundance of opportunities for professional development at the University of Warwick organised by the Academic Development Centre, as already mentioned. However, due to the workload and the teaching timetable it might be difficult for some colleagues to stay updated with the workshops offered, which at times happen to take place during teaching hours. Furthermore, the opportunities offered by the ACD target academics from every faculty, while the reading group dealt with general pedagogic themes offering a venue for reflection on those from the modern languages’ perspective. The reading group was also a non-hierarchical space to which everyone was invited. Not only did PhD students participate in a couple of meetings, but so did non-academic staff. Usually, language meetings are only attended by permanent or temporary staff, but not by PhD teaching assistants because attendance at meetings is not part of their contract.
Participation in our reading group allowed colleagues to keep themselves abreast of pedagogic literature and debates around teaching and learning in higher education, as well as university strategic priorities. Colleagues who decided to take part in the reading group ‘forced’ themselves to read pedagogic literature ‘because of their responsibility to the group for participating in the discussion’ (Coria-Navi and Moncrieff, 2018, p.6) notwithstanding the increasing workload, administrative tasks, and the consequent lack of time to reflect about teaching. Becoming familiar with new approaches to teaching and learning led some colleagues to small teaching changes.
However, it is also important to focus on the challenges that running the reading group posed, as identifying them helps in pinpointing critical aspects of supporting the development of SoTL. The first is the fact that participation to the reading group was very gendered, namely no male colleague attended any meeting. This is primarily due to a structural imbalance, as the majority of colleagues on a teaching-focussed contract are women (39 women vs 10 men), and therefore more involved in SoTL meetings and events. The presence of female colleagues on research contracts was a positive sign against the differentiation among staff on research and teaching contracts. It would be interesting to have more extensive data related to gender around the participation in pedagogical reading groups. On a very small scale, our experience confirms the disproportionate representation of women in SoTL self-selected activities (McKinney and Chick, 2010, p.5).
Despite the presence of colleagues on a research contract, they were overall a minority. Their highest participation was in the sessions about trigger warnings and critical pedagogy. The reading group might have been perhaps interpreted more as an event about language teaching pedagogy, and this might be due to the fact that the roles of Director and Deputy Director of Teaching and Learning are covered by academics on teaching focussed contracts specialised in language teaching.
Another challenge concerned the possibility to apply principles from the readings to current practices due to university policies constraints (e.g. the assessment pattern of a module must be the same for every single student). As much as a ‘free thinking’ space was needed and welcomed, there was also frustration among colleagues for the limitations that teaching within the university structures brings with itself.
The most practical and final issue was timing. Despite varying time slots, day and format of the meeting (online or hybrid), organising the meetings around the academic calendar to avoid days with multiple meeting or research events was extremely challenging. Perhaps in the future, the reading group meetings could be included in the academic calendar disseminated at the beginning of September.
BROADENING OUR SoTL COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
As mentioned above, our experience of the reading group pointed at a clear over-representation of female participants, either in teaching and research contracts, in teaching-focussed ones or graduate teaching assistants. This coincides with the existing data on the role of gender in type of contracts, teaching activities, and SoTL participation (McKinney and Chick, 2010; Coderch, 2023). We therefore aimed at widening our SoTL community of practice by following Coderch’s (2023) recommendation on the necessity of clarifying concepts, definitions and expectations of SoTL. In order to achieve this, ‘the criteria for the evaluation of SoTL need, then, to be defined in line with what is expected from research: a valuable contribution to the advancement of knowledge. For this to happen, the acknowledgement of research activities needs to stop being reserved for the ranks of staff who are eligible to take part in the REF assessment’ (Coderch, 2023, p.6). The next steps consisted in liaising with: (a) the Director of Research in our department to co-organise ‘research and SoTL meetings’; and (b) academic developers with expertise in SoTL to offer a more tailored departmental support.
Our first research and SoTL meeting was designed as a first step towards restoring parity between discipline-specific research and SoTL and towards promoting a stronger understanding and appreciation of each other’s role. During the session, colleagues were able to express their ideas, challenges, concerns, and expectations in a safe and supportive environment. As expected, many of these shared challenges, concerns, and expectations regarding SoTL coincide with what the literature on the topic has already identified across the sector (Bailey et al., 2022, p.269). A thematic analysis yielded the need of the following themes: more clarity on what is understood by SoTL; more support, visibility, recognition, dialogue, and collaboration across areas; a formal and recognised mentoring system, and more opportunities to share practice. These themes, in turn, helped us to draw our short term and long-term goals. The first one was soon addressed by organising a talk on ‘What is SoTL’, delivered by one academic developer specialising in the field. While a more balanced gender representation was not achieved, both events were well attended, sparking interesting discussions. Overall, we believe some progress has been achieved; this joint enterprise has given members a sense of community and ownership
LESSONS LEARNT AND WAYS FORWARD
A collaborative and integrated SoTL: collaboration is a crucial aspect of SoTL and communities of practice (Tierney et al., 2020). We clearly noted an emphasis on the ways that working, interacting, discussing, sharing, and collaborating with others supported us and our colleagues in our SoTL journey. But for this to be successful, it needs to be equally integrated in the department culture and activities. Our next event is a research away-day, co-organised with the Director of Research, consisting of a ‘SoTL morning’ with opportunities to share practice and explore how colleagues with complementary expertise can be brought together to set up a SoTL inquiry.
Specialised support: Tierney et al. (2020, p.44) have pointed how development opportunities are seen as a key factor in leading teaching staff from being a practitioner to a SoTL researcher. In our case, informal development events supported by an external specialist in SoTL has contributed to clarify the concept, the focus, the characteristics and the stages of SoTL. Our abovementioned ‘SoTL morning’ will also include a workshop focusing on the practicalities of undertaking and designing a SoTL inquiry, particularly looking at ethical criteria and considerations, delivered once again by an academic developer.
Visible support: this has led to more sharing and discussion of practice and the benefits of SoTL being seen and recognised on a wider scale. Thus, we envisage a dedicated SoTL space, either virtual or physical, where research and projects can be shared and disseminated, as an intrinsic part of SoTL.
Mentoring: SoTL has long depended on informal mentoring and support. While informal mentoring offers a lot of flexibility and benefits, it is often unrecognised in workloads. Therefore, we propose more formal mentoring as a way to increase practitioners’ ability to undertake SoTL research.
Motivation and accountability: the pedagogy reading group showed that accountability and peer-support increase the motivation and ‘positive’ pressure to read scholarly articles during the more demanding and intensive academic year. The key is setting up some ‘protective time’ during the term. Writing groups using the pomodoro technique have been particularly successful in creating supportive, inclusive, and less hierarchical spaces and in forming enduring communities of practice (Kent et al., 2017).
Slow scholarship: it is worth mentioning that we have consciously avoided the language of performativity and productivity as this has never been one of our goals, given the staff wellbeing crisis caused by a more marketised higher education environment (Jayman, Glazzard and Rose, 2022). Instead, we have always sought to cultivate a supportive, sustainable, empathetic and flexible community of SoTL. It is important to bear in mind that academics are busier and working faster than ever (Berg and Seeber, 2016), while the focus is on what we do rather than on who we are (Ball, 2012). Colleagues might not be able to attend and engage with all SoTL events. However, this is not an indication of a lack of interest, just a lack of time. In our experience, we can affirm that practitioners value being part of a community of learning and practice. Slow scholarship (Mountz et al., 2015) should prioritize caring, allowing time to think, plan and work well as it has the transformative potential to make higher education institutions places where the whole learning community can collectively and collaboratively thrive.
Address for correspondence: l.villamediana-gonzalez@warwick.ac.uk and v.abbatelli.1@warwick.ac.uk
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