ChatGPT has sparked heated discussion in higher education since its public release and increasing empirical studies have been made available examining its application to higher education teaching and learning. To capture and synthesize the initial scholarly developments in this topic, we undertook a scoping review of empirical research into the use of ChatGPT for higher education teaching and learning, published in the first eight months since its release. We identified 39 articles through a systematic literature search in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. Our analysis identified five thematic areas that extant research has contributed to, including (1) ChatGPT's performance in assessment; (2) ChatGPT's capacity in facilitating learning; (3) staff and students' perceptions of ChatGPT; (4) the adoption of ChatGPT, and; (5) ChatGPT-related policy implications. Drawing on the findings, we discuss current understanding and directions for future research in each of the thematic area. We then discuss issues emerged from the reviewed literature, including implications for improving research design, researching academic integrity, and explaining ChatGPT's pedagogical value in light of learning theories and other digital technologies.