The Scholarship of Teaching: My Own Experience
What drew you to the scholarship of teaching and learning?
I think I took an interest in teaching very early on in my career. I had a little bit of writing experience when I was an intern and when I was a medical officer and I quite enjoyed the discipline-specific writing that I did. So I started looking at options for writing in terms of health profession education but I realize that I needed a lot more reading time before I would be ready to do anything publishable. I focussed mainly on education in terms of innovation that I could introduce to improve students’ performance. That emerged into what was probably was my first project: looking at improving students’ performance with feedback. And really from there it grew. I saw more opportunities for more projects. Once I realized that I had found my niche, from there the growth wasexponential because you really just flourish when you enjoy what you do. The biggest lesson for me probably was to go where my passion was because initially I was heading in the direction of being a bench researcher. I really wasn’t particularly happy as a bench researcher and when I came back into teaching I realized that that’s where I had to go.
What was your primary motivation? Enjoyment?
I think enjoyment just came with doing it. I think what drove me was to see students who really wanted to make a difference and needed the skills to do that. Now many years later I am starting see students come back and I see the success stories, so it builds on itself: the more you see than the more you do it.
Has the scholarship of teaching had an impact on your professional life?
It really drives you to evidence-based practice so you go and look and for what’s good and you use that. You also get others to engage in scholarly teaching and to use evidence based practice as a rationale for what they do, and that’s been a major driver in the teaching process in the university, and has taken quite a long time to get going. There’s a long lag phase before people in your own institution believe what you say and then it takes off from there. It underpins the training in the education programme that I offer. I think intrinsically I am an evidence-based person: I don’t like doing things that don’t have a good reason to do it.
Is there any cost in being involved in the scholarship of teaching?
Yes I think there is a cost. It takes time out of your leisure time. One has to be convinced that what you are doing is really good for others rather than just yourself in order to pursue that activity after hours. Also, I suppose sometimes when you raise a flag not everyone agrees. I have done it like this for 20 years so I will continue to do it. So you get a camp of people who don’t particularly buy into your space in teaching.
What advice would you have for academics wishing to pursue the scholarship of teaching and learning?
The most important advice is to persevere; you need to have an approach which clearly pits yourself at the right level so that you don’t get disappointed with not achieving things because it’s too early in your career. You just have to persevere; you do not have to be brilliant to be a scholar. You need to be realistic and see what is achievable. And it is definitely worth the while.