Concluding comments

Concluding comments

In recent times the idea of the ‘scholarship of teaching and learning’ has come to the fore. Ernest Boyer, who coined the term (1990), put forward a compelling argument around what scholarship in the academy should entail. He suggested that academics might aim to be scholars, not only in the traditional sense of researching in their discipline (what he termed the ‘scholarship of discovery’), but also to engage in a ‘scholarship of teaching’. A range of definitions have been offered on what it means to be a ‘scholar’ of one’s teaching.These include being an excellent teacher, using the literature on teaching and learning to inform one’s teaching, conducting research on the teaching of one’s discipline, together with explicit reflection on and communication of one’s work to allow for peer review. A significant aspect of this work therefore demands an engagement with education theory.This guide has presented a kit of ‘thinking tools’ which the scholar can skilfully apply to complex contexts.This has been merely a starting point and of course this kind of journey does not have an end; there is a lifetime of interesting reading and thinking ahead. Enjoy the ride!