Advancing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Architectural History

Abstract

This paper explores the potential for architectural history to engage more widely and more deeply with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). Through a review of published SoTL from architectural history and related disciplines, as well as interviews with architectural history educators in Australia and New Zealand, the aim is to identify barriers and enablers to SoTL. These educators, each with recent SoTL outputs of their own, represent a nascent subculture within the discipline. Their perspective articulates the valuable contribution of SoTL towards the discipline’s wider debates on its relevance. This insight thus provides a basis upon which to build an approach to SoTL tailored to the discipline’s cultural norms and contextual demands. Whilst architectural history educators have certainly engaged in discussions regarding what gets taught and how it gets delivered, such discourse is rarely elevated to the level of critical scholarship. SoTL is the mechanism by which educators can evaluate and disseminate their own pedagogical innovations, thus yielding evidence to inform further development across the discipline. Additional opportunities presented by SoTL include deeper engagement with the field’s ongoing political projects, such as decolonising the curriculum, as well as ongoing developments across higher education related to changing student demographics, needs and expectations. Indeed, the SAHANZ community occupies a prime position for elevating the rigour of SoTL activity and providing a platform for engaging in discourse surrounding pedagogical innovation. We might take inspiration from colleagues in art history and the humanities, who recently reflected on the role of SoTL in response to fears and misconceptions within their fields. Their reflections further emphasise the essential role that SoTL plays in altering the trajectory of any field towards one that values scholarship-informed teaching as an integral activity.