A Study On The Practice Of The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning In The United States

In the development of Chinese higher education,it has gradually become a consensus that the university need to improve the quality of teaching,comprehensively evaluate the performance of teachers' work and correct the deviation that overvalue scientific research while ignore the deviation of teaching.Overvaluing scientific research while ignoring teaching is also a problem widely criticized in American higher education.Therefore,in the 1990 s the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching put forward a concept named "the scholarship of teaching and learning",it called for people paying attention to the scholarship of teaching and learning,and carried out a series of the scholarship of teaching and learning practice.After that,more and more universities have paid attention to the scholarship of teaching and learning,taken a series of measures to encourage and support the development of the scholarship of teaching and learning.Compared with the study on individual teachers of the scholarship of teaching and learning practice,this paper studies the scholarship of teaching and learning practice based on the organization level in United States.In addition to facilitate research,another important reason for choosing this point of view is that : university's scholarship of teaching and learning can not only rely on the individual teacher's career self-consciousness,but also need support and encouragement to lead teachers to carry out the scholarship of teaching and learning practice from an organization and institutionalization level.In this paper,on the basic of stating the connotation of the scholarship of teaching and learning,explaining the background of the scholarship of teaching and learning practice in American universities,using literature method,comparative method and case analysis method to study on the scholarship of teaching and learning in American university external organization and university itself.In the United States,as a representative of the non-governmental organization(NGO),Carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching is an important force to promote the scholarship of teaching and learning practice in Colleges and universities.These NGOs promote to the development of the scholarship of teaching and learning in university through many ways,such as carrying out relevant research,setting up specialized projects and leading institutions,providing online resources and so on;within the universities,by increasing the weights in teaching teachers' promotion and rewarding,cultivating the post-graduate students' teaching literacy,paying attention to teaching ability in teachers recruitment,seting up the project and awards,encouraging the teaching academic communication and other means to carry out the scholarship of teaching and learning practice.The practice of scholarship of teaching and learning in United States has such characteristics as non-governmental organization participation,diversity of supporting measures,comprehensive content and so on.Although the practice is also facing the traditional concept,the shortage of funds,non-perfect evaluation mechanism,overall,the practice of scholarship of teaching and learning has improved the teaching status and the scientific teaching in American universitiesThe important enlightenment from the practice of the scholarship of teaching and learning in American universities concludes:paying attention to the importance of university functions and improving the quality of teaching;returning the true meaning of acedemic activities and comprehensively evaluating of university teachers;needing multi-organizations to participate in and setting up university support system for the practice of the scholarship of teaching and learning;expanding and systeminzing the supporting practical measures.