Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and other scholarly inquiry practices are on the rise in higher education. Faculty and instructors are increasingly curious to examine what’s working in their classrooms, and to be able to draw on evidence-based, peer-reviewed information about how to best support learning. As UBC Instructor and SoTL practitioner Ido Roll noted in a recent article about SoTL:
“As a person, I will not trust a bridge that has not been tested. Yet, we expect our students to trust instruction that was not vetted.
A physician will not say that a certain medication works because she once had a patient that said that it really helped her. Yet, we often use similar anecdotes to prove that our instruction works.
Overall, there is a big gap here. We put a lot of effort in teaching better, yet we do not sufficiently study our teaching. Scholarly Inquiry closes the loop. How well do we do, and how can we do it better?”
A special opportunity is available at the Festival of Learning for those looking to close that loop by designing and conducting their own scholarly inquiry project! Join Peter Arthur, Gary Hunt and Ido Roll on June 7 & 8 for four half-day workshops to design a scholarly inquiry project for use in your teaching.
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Through structured facilitation and peer discussion, participants will learn about finding appropriate literature, writing a researchable question, strategies for data collection and analysis, ethical requirements, and ways to disseminate inquiry results. By the end, participants will leave with a developed plan to implement at their institution.
Here is an overview of the four, half-day workshops:
Part 1 – June 7 : Scholarly Inquiry Project: Introduction to Scholarly Inquiry Project Components (Part 1 of 4) (9:00 – 12:00)
- A systems overview of the elements of a scholarly inquiry project. We will identify where the common challenges are in progressing through the phases of conducting a scholarly inquiry project
Part 2 – June 7: Scholarly Inquiry Project: Forming Your Scholarly Inquiry Question (Part 2 of 4) (1:00 – 4:30)
- A detailed look at how to write a researchable question with consideration of implications for methodology, time constraints and resource availability. By the end of this session participants will have formulated their inquiry questions
Part 3 – June 8: Choosing the Appropriate Scholarly Inquiry Methods for Gathering Evidence (Part 3 of 4) (9:00 – 12:00)
- An overview of the scope of methods used in scholarly inquiry projects, both quantitative and qualitative and what counts as valid evidence toward answering the research question.
Part 4 – June 8 : Scholarly Inquiry Ethics, Managing Milestones and Sharing your Results (Part 4 of 4) (1:00 – 4:30)
- Procedures for accommodating dual role research and the ethical requirements of conducting scholarly inquiry. Setting goals for progression and how to best disseminate results from your project.
These workshops are FREE with your Festival Registration (pre-registration required). Choose any combination of the four parts (strongly recommend those taking Part 2 also attend Part 1)
Pre-requisites: NONE. You need no background in research or educational/pedagogical investigation. These workshops are designed to help faculty build new expertise, making use of their own background and experience brought from the classroom.
Sign up for these workshops when you REGISTER for the Festival of Learning!