Leadership, SoTL, and Mentorship in a Teaching Scholars Community of Practice

Abstract

The Teaching Scholars Program and Community of Practice (TSCoP) develops educational leadership and research through enabling reflective conversations, purposeful listening, inclusive standards, and bold thinking about Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Teaching Scholars lead innovative practice in their own faculty given their shared commitment to improving teaching and learning in diverse post-secondary contexts through practice focused research. In this paper, we describe how the TSCoP is both formal in structure and design, and informal and emergent in facilitated interpersonal discussions. Ongoing conversations among diverse colleagues contribute to Teaching Scholars’ reflective and reflexive practice, help each educational leader gain new insights into their own studies and expand their vision for educational leadership in higher education. We use a SoTL framework to examine and position each of our research projects, and explore and make connections with educational leadership, mentorship and SoTL research.