The Scholarship of Teaching in Health Science Schools

Teaching is a core mission for all health science schools. Despite its key role in training new generations of health care professionals, teaching has been overshadowed by the revenue- and prestige-generating activities of research and clinical care. Research, both basic and clinical, is equated with scholarship and is rewarded in the promotion and tenure process, as well as with intramural and extramural funding. Clinical service generates revenue for schools; teaching, however, does not generate revenue, and, traditionally, teaching and the creative activity related to it have been seen not as scholarship but as an expectation. Over the last decade or so, scholars of teaching have called for a new view of scholarship that includes the scholarship of teaching. This view is broader in scope than scholarly teaching within a classroom or clinic. It refers to scholarly activity related to teaching that results in enduring products that are peer reviewed and broadly disseminated. These are examples of scholarly work and should be recognized as such. Academic institutions should value high-quality teaching and educational innovations and reward them as scholarly work. This article presents an overview of what the scholarship of teaching means, how it can be assessed, and the needed next steps.