Preparing the Next Generation: Placing SoTL at the Core of the Preparation of Future History Instructors

If the scholarship of teaching and learning is to become a permanent element in education it will be necessary to make it an integral part of the preparation of instructors at all levels. But , like all institutions, academia resists change, and it will be necessary to consider crucial strategic questions if SoTL is to be part of the fabric of training of future faculty: Should there be an effort to integrate SoTL into the training of secondary school teachers in order to expose future instructors to best practices before they even enter college? Can the challenges of teaching in a discipline be conveyed in an interdisciplinary pedagogical course? Should such preparation take the form of individual courses or can it become part of the structure of degree requirements for the Ph.D.? What teaching strategies are most effective at preparing future faculty for the classroom? And how to find answers to these questions that are appropriate for specific institutional contexts? It is likely that the questions and answers are of benefit across the disciplines. This panel will explore the development of a variety of different responses to such questions within the discipline of history. Historians operating in different national and institutional contexts will explain and demonstrate how they have integrated the scholarship of teaching and learning into the preparation of future instructors. Each will briefly position these efforts within a typology of possible strategies and products of the different courses. Finally we will discuss the effects the different approaches have on made these approaches appropriate. Presenter #1 will discuss a pre-service teacher's course on teaching beyond the white male narrative in US history Presenter #2 will describe SOTL as the centerpiece of a course in which history students learn about teaching the crucial operations in their field by working with students from across disciplines. Presenter #3 will discuss the minor in high education pedagogics in Swedish universities Presenter #4 will describe the use of collaborative SoTL projects in a course for PH.D. students on Teaching College History Presenter #5 will describe the creation of a Ph.D. minor in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and a project by the American Historical Association and the Teagle Foundation to incorporate best SoTL practices in a model course for Ph.D. students at the University of California at Berkeley. Presenters #6 and #7 will share their experiences of providing an innovative program for graduate historians who are beginning to teach.After these initial presentations have laid out a range of potential strategies, participants in the session will work together in small groups to discuss what approaches might be most effective at integrating SoTL into the training of future instructors within their institutional contexts, followed by a sharing of ideas by the entire group. The insights gained will be collated and categorized and made available on a website as an open-educational resource for the wider community to avail of.