Academics Reap Benefits From Sowing Engagement With The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning

Abstract

Recent years have seen a drive towards the establishment of various Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) programmes at institutions of higher education with the primary aim to improve teaching and learning, which may be achieved, in part, by academics who constantly seek to reflect on and enhance their teaching practice by reporting on it in the public domain. The purpose of this article is to highlight the benefits that academics reap from actively sowing engagement with a small SoTL group in Engineering Education. Inspired by humanistic principles and the constructivist approach, the transformative learning theory is concerned with the role of experiential learning and personal development, which is applied in this descriptive case study where quantitative data has been collected over a 9-year period (2014 – 2022). Five tangible benefits are identified, being (1) research funding (funding is received from the government of South Africa for accredited research publications), (2) personal development (on average, each academic completed 9 research publications), (3) career development (3 academics were promoted from a lecturer to an Associate Professor) (4) continuous professional development (continual registration with an accreditation body) and (5) belonging to a community of practice (ongoing support and encouragement is received from other members in the group). It is recommended that at least one member from each department within a faculty be associated with a SoTL group, that may lead to more awareness being created about the benefits associated with such programmes.