The Role of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Current Discussions of Tuning and Learning Outcomes

In recent years historians have made great strides towards articulating the learning outcomes that may be produced by effective history courses.  We now have a much better idea of what students studying history should be expected to know, do, and value, and this has greatly energized teaching within our profession at the same time that it has provided a language for communicating what history adds to our students’ education.

  But articulating potential learning outcomes is not sufficient in itself.  We must actually produce these outcomes in our students, and this requires effective teaching. Over the past twenty years, a growing scholarship of teaching and learning has advanced what we know about effective ways to increase learning in history courses. These models can be of enormous benefit to those who have concluded the process of articulating learning outcomes. But to take full advantage of these we must build bridges between movements such as Tuning and the detailed knowledge that has been created within the scholarship of teaching and learning