Improving Pedagogy Through Action Learning and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This ASA Teaching Workshop explored the potential of Action Learning to use teachers' tacit knowledge to collaboratively confront pedagogical issues. The Action Learning model grows out of industrial management and is based on the notion that peers are a valuable resource for learning about how to solve the problems encountered in the workplace. Action Learning groups (called sets) engage in reflection and collaboration with the goal of identifying and implementing strategies that address specific teaching problems. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning provides guidance for systematically documenting and disseminating the impact on student learning that results from changed classroom practice. Together Action Learning and SoTL promote the improvement of teaching through collaborative reflection on tacit knowledge, paired with formal knowledge as documented in the literature.