The purpose of the Carnegie Foundation initiative for the Advancement of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) Leadership program at Kwantlen Polytechnic University consisted of a combination of the following two themes:
- Developing Scholars of Teaching and Learning — to provide those new to the scholarship of teaching and learning with a framework for engaging in scholarly activity; continuing the work of the Mentoring Newer Scholars Leadership Cluster.
- Creating and sustaining Scholarly Communities of Teaching and Learning Practice — both institutional and disciplinary communities committed to scholarly practices and issues in common.
The Past President of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE), Julia Christensen Hughes, has stated that we need "a national strategy (to) be developed to support evidence-based improvement of teaching and learning in higher education." (December 2005) and we agree that this is a key element of our individual and institutional approaches.
It continues to be our belief that we must start by knowing our own research paradigms more deeply and uncover our own views of what research is and is not in the area of teaching and learning. Then, we can expand to a better understanding of other research processes, including and validating the many scholarly possibilities. We are working on scholarly and creative cultural change processes as Kwantlen strives to built a truly Polytechnic University. We support faculty (and, therefore, student learning) with Mentorship for Scholarship through interdisciplinary faculty groups. Overall, our intent is to develop reflective practice in research — parallel to reflective practitioners in teaching — and to practice effective dissemination of our scholarship across varying contexts and at all stages of the process.
The project was housed with The Centre for Academic Growth at Kwantlen http://kwantlen.ca/academicgrowth.
While the project has been completed (see links in right side bar for reports) the support for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Building Scholarly Communities continues at Kwantlen through the events and programs offered by The Centre for Academic Growth.