Abstract:
Academics must be encouraged to reflect on their teaching, to apply new
pedagogies to support student learning and to report on the results of
these actions, which really forms part of programmes relating to
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). However, there seems to
be resistance among some academics to get involved in these
programmes due to fear of change or discrimination. The purpose of
this article is to highlight the perceptions of four academics from
different engineering fields towards such a programme from a
University of Technology in South Africa. A qualitative study is employed
where a focus group interview was used to gather data which are
correlated to the SoTL unicycle detailed in the article. A benefit of
joining an SoTL programme includes ‘developing a teaching action plan’
while a key challenge relates to time concerns. An implication may be to
stimulate awareness among non-participating academics about what an
SoTL programme really engenders.
