The Scholarship of Teaching:

Central Questions of the Scholarly Inquiry

The scholarship of teaching movement recognizes that teaching, properly conceived and executed, entails important intellectual activity.  Much of that activity centers around four central questions:

1. What do we want our students to be able to do intellectually (or physically, emotionally, or socially) as a result of taking our courses?
   
   
2. What will we do (or what can we do) to foster that intellectual (or other) achievement?
   
   
3. How will we and our student best understand the nature and progress of their learning?
   
   
4. How will we know whether our efforts have contributed to (or perhaps hindered) our students' learning?

An evaluation of teaching might center on how the teacher raises and answers those questions. 

Thinking about these questions more deeply