Foreword

The impact of the movement we have come to call the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) can be measured in terms of its products and the processes that yielded them. In terms of products, we now have a significant number of journals, some with an international focus. We have an impressive range of influential books written by Carnegie scholars and many others. We look to these and other products to make our teaching more scholarly. Equally important for me are the processes by which these publications and other products come to be. In this regard, I have always considered it of paramount importance that what we might call distal work—that which is conducted at other institutions around the world—be complemented by local work conducted in our own backyards—our home institutions and departments. This brings us to Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Research and Relationships. Local work has local relevance and authenticity, and these are extremely valuable for scholarly approaches to teaching. Even more vital is the fact that engaging in local SoTL work builds communities of practice in this area and adds measurably to an institution's teaching culture. To this end, those of us who work in SoTL envision institutions in which SoTL work is the norm. It is an integral part of what a reflective institution and its practitioners do. This is why I am so encouraged by Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Research and Relationships. Here we see reflection and research about teaching brought to life at one institution. As we read Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Research and Relationships, I invite us to ask if this type of SoTL community is thriving at our institutions. We might also ask what it takes to create and sustain such a community. Certainly, administrative support is essential. With this in mind, it is very encouraging to see that one of the contributing authors in Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Research and Relationships was Mercer University's provost, Wallace Daniel. Of course, if volumes like Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Research and Relationships help build a community, we must ask who is included in such a community. The broad range of disciplines represented in this volume is very impressive in this regard. I am especially pleased to see that librarians’ perspectives are included. We have much to learn from librarians regarding teaching and SoTL, and it is very encouraging to read in that chapter that librarians want to be part of the learning processes that SoTL affords. It is worth noting that a number of authors in this volume address the notion of signature pedagogies. Signature pedagogies provide both an important context for SoTL and an opportunity to look critically at that pedagogy. The authors of this volume are to be applauded for doing both. It is one thing to describe and affirm common practice as found in signature pedagogies. It is something else again to use SoTL methods to examine, and perhaps challenge, what may be the status quo, as a number of these authors have done, especially in the area of student supervision. This examination takes some courage, and it is why I am so impressed with the chapters in this volume that take this on. This is how we affirm who we are as teachers and improve at the same time. It is also impressive that some of the authors in Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Research and Relationships describe processes in which data are collected and responded to before a course ends. This practice of what one author calls “real-time instructional feedback” (Jane West, Chapter 5 of this volume, 57) requires a considerable degree of organization and timeliness. It is an excellent practice, not just for the immediate benefits to students but also for what they see modeled in their instructors. Indeed, this volume provides models for all of us to follow. When we do, Multidisciplinary Collaboration: Research and Relationships will get even more of us talking. Gary Poole is a senior scholar at the Centre for Health Education Scholarship, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

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