Carolin Kreber and Patricia Cranton see development of scholarship of teaching as a process of reflection on experience and research in teaching. The second, third and fourth concentric circles represent content, process, and premise reflection respectively.

The three spokes partition the circles into regions representing the three domains of knowledge (instructional, pedagogical, and curricular) shown on the periphery of the figure. Within each knowledge domain, learning is characterized by various forms of instrumental, communicative, and emancipatory learning processes, which are derived from Habermas’s three forms of knowledge.

Development of SOTL in this conceptualization is thus comprised of nine distinct types of learning.