In Canada, like elsewhere, SoTL has continued to grow and mature as more faculty have participated in what has been called the teaching commons (Huber and Hutchings, 2005). While the growth of SoTL has been documented in the literature, Hutchings, Huber, & Ciccone (2011) advocate the need for SoTL to be supported and legitimized at the institutional level for it to have a larger impact. What has been less explored, however, is a systematic assessment of the extent to which SoTL is actively being conducted at the national and institutional level, its effect on individual scholars’ careers, and the continuing challenges and barriers of conducting SoTL within the academy.
This presentation will report on two studies that aim to address this gap. First, the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education in Canada approved a study to explore the current state of the SoTL in Canadian Higher Education. The purpose of the project was to examine how SoTL activity and support has been changing in recent years in Canada. The second study assessed the degree to which SoTL was being conducted amongst academic and administrative staff at a single medical doctoral university in Western Canada. This study sought to categorize the depth and intensity of SoTL activity using a model put forth by Trigwell (2012), examining whether demographic variables such as gender, academic rank and academic discipline impact one’s likelihood of SoTL engagement. The presenters will use our findings to illuminate the current state of SoTL in Canada
