Why do we bother? Exploring biologists' motivations to share the details of their teaching practice

Scott, Graham

Abstract

There exists in the UK (and across the global HE sector) a community of practitioners who define themselves as biologists but who are more than that. They are reflective educators involving themselves in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). In this paper I explore the motivations of these individuals to disseminate the detail of their teaching practice. I reflect upon my own experience and my observations of the experiences of others and in doing so I explore common enablers/disablers to engagement with SoTL. I discuss the prime importance of a supportive disciplinary SoTL community and of inspirational individuals (peers and managers alike). I reflect upon the tensions that exist between teaching and research focused career paths and I consider the possibility that this tension is of variable significance. I conclude that the barriers to individual engagement with SoTL can be overcome and that the individual drive to do so is a powerful one.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: 2015
• Journal: F1000Research
• Electronic ISSN: 1759-796X
• Publisher: F1000Research
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 4
• Article Number: 46
• APA6 Citation: Scott, G. (2015). Why do we bother? Exploring biologists' motivations to share the details of their teaching practice. F1000Research, 4, https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.6129.1
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.6129.1
• Keywords: Biology, Teaching practice
• Publisher URL: http://f1000research.com/articles/4-46/v1
• Copyright Statement: © 2015 Scott G. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Data associated with the article are available under the terms of the Creative Commons Zero "No rights reserved" data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).
• Additional Information: Copy of article first published in: F1000Research, 2015 at http://f1000research.com/articles/4-46/v1