For the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) to be understood as significant intellectual work in the academy, Peter Felten argues in his latest article, SoTL practitioners need to identify shared principles of good practice.

While honoring the diversity of SoTL in its many forms across the globe, such principles can serve as a heuristic for assessing work in the field. These principles include (1) inquiry into student learning, (2) grounded in context, (3) methodologically sound, (4) conducted in partnership with students, and (5) appropriately public.

Taken together, these five principles can be guideposts for developing and refining individual SoTL inquiries and larger SoTL initiatives. These principles also can clarify and demystify SoTL to those on campuses who evaluate such work, helping to make the case for institutional resources and support for SoTL. Finally, these principles articulate a vision of a scholarship that enhances, perhaps even transforms, teaching and learning in higher education.

Felten’s article appears in the inagural issue of , the journal of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. The journal’s editor’s selected this article as the free download for this issue; the remainder of the journal is available in print or through JSTOR.

Felten is assistant provost, director of both the Center for the Advancement of Teaching & Learning and the Center for Engaged Learning, and associate professor of history.

• How does the mission of the NL initiative connect to and support your work?
• What are ways that the NL initiative might support the interdisciplinary and co-curricular study of religion among faculty, students, and staff?
• What experiences, events, or programs would you like to see in the NLP and how can we work together to make these happen?
• What are some ways the NLP might become and present itself as a place of welcome for people of diverse traditions and practices.

In particular, we will hope that you will help us consider how the NLP,which includes the Truitt Center for Religious and Spiritual Life and the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society (CSRCS), can support the University’s commitment to fostering respect for human difference and nurture a rich intellectual community.

We hope that you’ll join us as we talk about the role of religious and spiritual life in shaping global citizens! Friday’s Campus Conversation will be in Belk Pavilion room 208, 1:40-2:40 p.m.

Jan Fuller, University Chaplain

Brooke Barnett, Associate Provost for Inclusive Community

Lynn Huber, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Acting Director of the Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society

Co-sponsored by the Fund for Excellence in the Arts & Sciences and CATL.