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Doing SoTL in Medieval History A cross-Atlantic dialogue

University of Glasgow, Scotland, vgunn{at}admin.gla.ac.uk

Leah Shopkow

Indiana University, USA, shopkowl{at}indiana.edu

This article, presented as a dialogue between the authors, explores what they perceive as critical areas of teaching and learning in the discipline of Medieval Studies. Within the discussion, notions of relevance and usefulness, widening access, and epistemological assumptions about the discipline are discussed and related to the practice of teaching the subject. The authors reflect on these notions in terms of the maintenance of traditional methods at undergraduate level despite an apparently changing student body. The question of whether changing the methods of research as well as teaching would alter both the nature of learning and the nature of the discipline is also raised. The authors conclude that the SoTL (scholarship of teaching and learning) of an established subject area such as Medieval Studies needs to reflect on the epistemology of the subject in all its practices, not just teaching but also research methods.

Key Words: higher education • medieval history • scholarship of teaching • subject epistemology

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Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, Vol. 6, No. 3, 255-271 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/1474022207080837


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This Article Abstract Free Full Text (Free PDF) Free Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Gunn, V. Articles by Shopkow, L. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?