Building Transdisciplinary SoTL: Creating a Culture and Language of Listening and Learning for Understanding

Abstract

This paper explores a range of metaphors and methods (Shulman, 2012) that have impacted the development of SoTL across the disciplines at our university. Given that faculty are spread across approximately 60 disciplines and four Colleges at UCC, it is important to figure out how we can communicate effectively about how we teach and how our students learn. A number of research questions are central to the paper: How can faculty talk about teaching and learning effectively across the disciplines if the latter work primarily in specific ways? How can we find an overarching language that facilitates transdisciplinary dialogue, communication and critique? Some of Shulman’s questions are also central regarding the nature of the discourse on teaching and learning, how it has changed and how it challenges the discipline.

SoTL does not develop accidentally, overnight. We have trod a SoTL pathway for over 20 years and can identify certain methods and metaphors that have led the way. The latter provide historical and cultural clues that beget a scholarly approach. SoTL itself provides methods that are at once processes of documentation and investigation, found in its portfolio genres, for example. The paper will explore these research methods, as well as the pedagogical methods central to Teaching for Understanding and Disciplinary Understanding on which we have drawn in our professional development accredited programs over many years. Our findings suggest that it is possible to develop a robust language of theory and practice across the disciplines that advances teaching and learning within and beyond the disciplines.