Then said a teacher, speak to us of Teaching.
And he said . . .
If [the teacher] is indeed wise
he does not bid you enter the house
of his wisdom, but rather leads you
to the threshold of your own mind.

Introduction

Gibran (56) implies that a good teacher is wise and possesses wisdom. I believe his word choice of wisdom, not knowledge, was deliberate. For a teacher can possess much knowledge but little wisdom. Such a teacher, I think, would not grasp the concept of  "the scholarship of teaching."  For underlying these few words is an implicit philosophy about teaching and about learning. In keeping with Gibran, I first put forth my own philosophy about these matters so that you can better understand my views about them. I then move on to discuss scholars, scholarships, and examples of pedagogy as they relate to the scholarship of teaching in nursing and health science. Finally, I offer my own definition of the scholarship of teaching.

Personal Philosophy

Good teaching is both good science and fine art. Its beginning is not with the learner but with a philosophical encounter with the self. Who am I? Who ought I to be? Who ought I to be as a teacher? The ongoing reflections that I weave regarding these questions create the tapestry and landscape of my teaching science and art. Thus, who I am greatly affects and reflects the quality and outcomes of my teaching.

Who I am forces me to differentiate my teaching "what" from my teaching "how." I view my teaching "what" as that part of my expert disciplinary knowledge that I choose to share with students. I consider it neither possible nor prudent to share all I know about a subject. To do so is to aggrandize myself and to belittle and rob the student of the joy and wonder of learning. I am but a sharer of knowledge and, when necessary, a slayer of inaccurate and outdated knowledge, but never a hoarder or a prisoner of it. To know what to teach, then, is not a matter of knowledge but of wisdom. Teaching less is often far wiser than teaching more.

My teaching "how" is about transformation; that is, how I transform the knowledge I wish to share and the knowledge students wish to learn into an empowering learning environment. This transformation is critical to the scholarship of teaching and learning and includes, among other traits, creativity, critical thinking, caring, critiquing, clarity, collaboration, commitment, communication, confidence, cultivation, curiosity, community, curriculum reform, cumulative knowledge building/revisioning, and continuous life-long learning.

Within the scholarship of teaching, one cannot separate the teaching "what" from the teaching "how." The proper proportion of each is needed and is ever-changing. Each individual student is different. Each class of students is different. Each course is different. Each teacher is different. Each teacher-student encounter is different. The good teacher acknowledges and accepts these differences while, at the same time, sees commonalities--a respect for students and for self, an openness to "teachable" moments, an "intuneness" to students' learning and discovery, an "intuneness" to students' joys and anxieties, and a commitment to students' excellence. Yes, I believe that good teaching--that which exemplifies the scholarship of teaching--is both good science and fine art.

I cannot talk about the scholarship of teaching without first talking about the "scholar" within the scholar"ship." The scholar"ship" (or, metaphorically, the ship of scholars) is composed of individuals who, according to Emden (1995), possess the following traits: "intense intellectual curiosity" (22); "disenchantment with prevailing systems" (23); "tenacity for progress within one's scholarly life" (24); "ability to move between disciplines and their respective schools of thought"(28); "holding a viewpoint" (29); and "an openness to scrutiny from peers" (31). Meleis, Hall, and Stevens (1998) identify some traits similar to and others different from Emden (1995). To them a scholar has the attributes of "critical thinking, a connection to practice, a commitment to the discipline's mission, substantive mastery areas, philosophical analyses, rigorous investigations, and a social awareness of the relationship between knowledge development and impact on society" (41). Glassick, Huber, and Maeroff (1997) include three qualities of a scholar that merit special consideration: "integrity, perseverance, and courage" (63). Finally, to Boyer (1990) a scholar is a person who recognizes that knowledge is acquired through "the scholarship of discovery, of integration, of application, and of teaching...." (25).

Based on these four viewpoints, the questions for you to ponder are these: Are all teachers scholars? Are all scholars teachers? Can persons called "not-scholars" engage in the scholarship of teaching? Can such persons engage in teaching without scholarship? Or is scholarship essential to the scholarship of teaching?

But, first, what is meant by the scholarship of teaching? For this inaugural issue of inventio, all authors were asked to react to The Carnegie Foundation's (1998) working definition:

The scholarship of teaching is problem posing about an issue of teaching or learning, study of the problem through methods appropriate to disciplinary epistemologies, application of results to practice, communication of results, self-reflection, and peer review (6).

Both my immediate reaction (first reading) and long-term reaction (several readings over several weeks) is that the definition "misses the boat" about the scholarship of teaching. It is a definition about research on teaching or on learning. This is not to say that such research is not crucial to pedagogy; it is. But to me the scholarship of teaching encompasses so much more. That is why I cannot separate the scholar from the scholarship. Who the teacher is reflects scholarliness or lack thereof. When a student says, "My teacher is a true scholar" [notice the differentiation from just a scholar], what is that student saying? The student is saying that the teacher's behavior in the classroom or laboratory (apart from that teacher's written scholarship which the student may or may not know about) reflects scholarliness. The teacher has high educational standards. The teacher questions the status quo. The teacher not only challenges students to think for themselves but also encourages them to think "out-of- the box." The teacher is creative. The teacher has expert command of the subject matter and is not threatened by students' questions. The teacher is responsible for observable scholarly growth of the students. The teacher is professional, has a passion for her/his areas of expertise, and is ethical. To me, behaviors such as these are at the heart of the scholarship of teaching. In my opinion, the Carnegie Foundation's definition primarily speaks to Boyer's (1990) scholarship of discovery but not to his (or my) primary definition of the scholarship of teaching, although the two complement each other beautifully.

Personal Examples of the Scholarship of Teaching

I have had an opportunity to engage with colleagues in two major areas that relate to the scholarship of teaching: (a) pedagogical research and (b) creative scholarship related to teaching.

During academic year 1995-1996, the College of Nursing and Health Science at George Mason University (GMU) offered its first writing-intensive nursing course. Along with other nursing faculty, Dr. Cary and I each taught a section of the course during the spring semester of 1996. We saw an opportunity to integrate the scholarship of teaching with the scholarship of discovery by conducting a pilot study (Silva, Cary, & Thaiss, in press) on students' perceptions of their writing skills at the beginning and at the end of the course. We collaborated on this project with Dr. Thaiss, now Chair of the English Department and then Director of the Writing Across the Curriculum Project at GMU.

Pilot study --The writing-intensive course requirements were specified in a senior-level course entitled "Professional Transition and Role Integration." Dr. Cary and I had 27 students in each of our classes. Our sections of the course were taught over a seven-week period. The specific writing-intensive student assignments were a one-page professional letter and a ten-page paper that focused on a professional issue. The writing-intensive teaching strategies included detailed instructions during class about the assignments, extensive oral and written feedback on drafts of the assignments, and multiple opportunities for revisions of the assignments.

Results from the writing-intensive course were as follows: At the beginning of the course, 42% of the students perceived their writing skills to be poor/fair, and 58% of the students perceived their writing skills to be good/excellent. However, at the end of the course, only 14% of the students perceived their writing skills to be poor/fair, and 86% of the students perceived their writing skills to be good/excellent. In addition, through student feedback and our own evaluation of the course, we discovered that the critical teaching strategy in improving students' writing was revision, revision, revision, with constructive and rapid feedback from peers and faculty. We also learned that for multiple revisions to occur (especially within a seven-week course) that assignments needed to be short, that is, one or two pages.

As a result of the pilot study, the following changes occurred in all sections of the course: (a) The ten-page professional issue paper was changed to a two-page position statement requiring several revisions, and (b) class time was committed to writing and to reflecting upon the writing-intensive assignments. In addition, Dr. Cary and I requested to teach the seven-week course again.

Main study--That opportunity came during the spring semester of 1997. We sought and received funding from the Research Committee of the College of Nursing and Health Science to expand the pilot study and to incorporate the two preceding changes into each section of the course that we taught. Results of this main study showed that the targeted writing strategies used in the writing-intensive course substantially improved students' writing skills.

In summary, regarding pedagogical research and the scholarship of teaching, the following positive outcomes occurred: (a) The writing-intensive components of the "Professional Transition and Role Integration" course were changed in accord with the results of the pilot and main studies; (b) the nature of the course and the pilot study results were presented at two national-level writing-across-the curriculum conferences; (c) the pilot study has been accepted for publication in a peer-reviewed nursing journal (Silva, Cary, & Thaiss, in press); (d) the main study has been presented at a regional research conference and is currently being written for publication; and (e) collaborative and interdisciplinary dialogues about how to best teach a writing-intensive course occurred between the Nursing and the English Departments.

Creative Scholarship Related to Teaching

I, along with colleagues, have been involved in several creative activities related to the scholarship of teaching over the past five years. These creative teaching activities included a distance education course, a classroom visitation project, grants to enhance teaching effectiveness/dissemination, and extensive use of the arts and humanities in the teaching of nursing.

Distance education course
In 1994, Dr. Sorrell (GMU nursing faculty) and I conceptualized the idea for the first distance education nursing course at GMU. In 1995, we were fortunate to be awarded $4,500 from the GMU Instructional Development Office to pursue this endeavor. Dr. Choi (GMU nursing faculty) also joined our team, along with staff from GMU's television studio, staff from Shenandoah University (the distance education site in Winchester, Virginia), and several guest speakers. The course offered via distance education was a 3-credit, 14-week, live and videotaped graduate course entitled "Seminar in the Ethics of Health Care." Of the 20 students in the course, 15 of them participated in the course in GMU's television studio and 5 of them participated via distance education in a properly equipped classroom at Shenandoah University.

Regarding the scholarship of teaching, the students and faculty involved had to learn new ways of preparing and teaching that were appropriate for the visual medium of television. Although the course was not without its occasional snags, several important positive outcomes related to the scholarship of teaching occurred: (a) Students and faculty found that, overall, the quality of instruction was better than in a non-televised course (due to well-preparedness and visuals); (b) students felt they had learned a valuable workforce skill by appearing on television and addressing not only their classmates but a regional cable audience; (c) the taped videos could be reviewed for evaluation of and reflection on one's teaching style; and (d) a publication on distance education teaching resulted from the course (Silva, Choi, & Sorrell, 1995).

Classroom visitation project
This scholarship of teaching opportunity funded by GMU's Zero Based Curriculum Project was spearheaded by Dr. Ehrlich (GMU physics and astronomy faculty). Its goal was to invite several good and highly experienced teachers from various disciplines within GMU to engage in peer evaluation of each other's teaching through classroom visitation. We then met as a group to assess and reflect upon each other's teaching. Each faculty's class was videotaped for those peer evaluators who could not attend every session, as well as for personal reflection.

I became a part of the project in 1995, along with six other colleagues who represented the disciplines of physics/astronomy, sociology, anthropology, history, chemistry, and social and organizational learning. Each of us took notes on the strengths and areas for improvement of the person teaching the class. (Of course, an explanation had to be given to students as to why six strangers suddenly appeared in their classroom!) An abbreviated example of notes I took during one classroom visitation follows:

Positives included a well-constructed syllabus, using a microphone (it was a large class), using handouts to highlight important points, asking thought-provoking questions, clarifying difficult theoretical material through use of two classroom experiments, and demonstrating a sense of humor.

Areas for improvement included lack of any feedback to students who gave incorrect responses to questions, too much material for time allowed, and not placing limits on late arriving students who disrupted the class by their lateness.

In the group discussions that followed, the group members were always respectful of the peer-reviewed person as they engaged with him or her about that person's teaching. The peer-reviewed person was genuinely appreciative of the feedback, especially when that person was unaware of a behavior. (For example, one member of the group tended to speak to only the left side of the classroom.) Invariably, the group discussions left peer-evaluation and took the form of reflection on pedagogy in general. The underlying assumption of this project was that "you can teach 'old dogs' new tricks" and both the assumption and the scholarship of teaching were upheld.

Grants to enhance teaching effectiveness/dissemination
Doris Goldstein (who is Director of the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University) and I were co-principal investigators on two Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area grants (1995-1996 and 1997-1998) that focused primarily on cooperative curriculum planning in nursing ethics between George Mason University (GMU) and Georgetown University (GTU). These two grants exemplified the scholarship of teaching through interdisciplinary collaboration between two universities.

The 1995-1996 grant accomplished the following: (a) obtaining, indexing, and disseminating a current ethics syllabus collection for nurse educators in baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs throughout the United States, (b) conducting a content analysis of all syllabi received to discern national trends in the content included and the methods used to teach nursing ethics, (c) offering a live televised and videotaped conference about the syllabi collection and about the content analysis results, and (d) publishing the results of the project (Silva & Goldstein, 1997).

The 1997-1998 grant built upon and expanded the 1995-1996 grant by cooperatively constructing a web site that linked information about the Office of Health Care Ethics, Center for Health Policy and Ethics at GMU with information about the National Reference Center, Kennedy Institute of Ethics at GTU. Detailed information about this web site can be found at: www.gmu.edu/departments/chp/ethics.htm. The web site is a part of all nursing ethics course syllabi at GMU so that students can access it and learn from it. It has helped bring the scholarship of teaching into cyberspace and the 21^st century.

Use of the arts and humanities in teaching
For most of my teaching career I have incorporated the arts and humanities into my teaching. I see this approach contributing to the scholarship of teaching by introducing or reintroducing a broad-based liberal arts focus into nursing. To illustrate how I have accomplished this goal, I will discuss the seminar course I taught during the fall semester of 1998, "Philosophical Bases of Inquiry." One of the textbooks used for the course is a philosophy book, and the first few seminars, which I teach, focus on the general nature of philosophy and how philosophy relates to nursing inquiry.

After these seminars are finished, the student seminars begin and are organized around the following philosophical topics: linguistics, epistemology, ontology, ethicalness/spirituality, and aesthetics. In linking nursing inquiry to the arts and humanities, students are encouraged to be creative and to think "out of the box." During the course, the students and I attended two Theater of the First Amendment Plays--Mating Cries by Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller and Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe. After attending the plays, we then made linkages to the course content.

We had three non-nursing guest speakers--a philosopher, an artistic director, and a Stanford-educated "true blue" scientist. The goal was for the students to "see" how professionals from other disciplines think and for the students to engage in dialogue with them about interdisciplinary inquiry. To enliven the seminars and enhance learning, students used a variety of readings from outside of nursing, including poetry by Shel Silverstein, books by Dr. Seuss, and articles in such journals and magazines as Science-Fiction Studies, The Journal of Aesthetics and Art, Philosophy Today, Architectural Record, Art Journal, and Newsweek.

The students also included video clips (e.g., The First World) and reproductions of art by Kollwitz, Buresova, Morisot, Picasso, Marisol (Beckerman, 1994), and Van Gogh. Those of us who had visited the National Gallery of Art's "Van Gogh's Van Goghs Exhibit" added additional insights to the discussions. The students and I also visited the GMU Johnson Center's art gallery where the dioramas of D. S. Baker and the painted wood carvings of G. Kachadourian were displayed under the title of "Theater of Dreams."

The arts and humanities were not studied in isolation but within the context of nursing and health care today. They were used to unburden nursing and nursing inquiry from its own routinized ontologies and epistemologies. In so doing, the students felt their intellectual and creative energies invigorated and expanded to new horizons. I submit that these internal changes in the students were an integral part of the scholarship of teaching.

Earlier in this article, I said that I believed the Carnegie Foundation had "missed the boat" in its working definition of the scholarship of teaching because of the narrowness of the definition. Having put forth both my philosophical thoughts about teaching and several personal examples of the scholarship of teaching as applied to Nursing and Health Science, I now offer my working definition of the scholarship of teaching:

To many, my definition of the scholarship of teaching would be labeled "soft." But after 30 years of teaching, I believe that, given a teacher possesses considerable knowledge in subjects taught, the rest is embodied in the teacher's character. A teacher who is brilliant of mind but unkind in spirit does not a scholar make. Nor does he or she contribute much to my vision of the scholarship of teaching. The true scholar--the one who is privileged to be engaged in the scholarship of teaching--possesses both an excellent mind and an open heart. Such a teacher, as Gibran said, "does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind" (56).

I would like to thank Rita Carty, Dean, College of Nursing and Health Science, and the Department of Instructional Improvement and Instructional Technologies (DoIIIT) for making this article possible.

Beckerman, A. "A personal journal of caring through esthetic knowing." Advances in Nursing Science 17.1 (1994): 71-79.

Boyer, E. L. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990.

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The Carnegie Teaching Academy Campus Program. Menlo Park, CA: Author, 1998.

Gibran, K. The Prophet. 1923. New York: Knopf, Inc., 1976.

Glassick, C. E., M.T. Huber, and G.I. Maeroff. Scholarship Assessed: Evaluation of the Professoriate. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1997.

Silva, M. C., A.H. Cary, and C. Thaiss. "When Students Can't Write: Solutions through a Writing-intensive Learning Course." Nursing and Health Care Perspectives, in press.

Silva, M. C., E.Choi, and J.M. Sorrell. "Teaching Ethics via Televised Distance Learning." NursingConnections 8.2 (1995): 23-26.