Workshop #1
9:00AM - 12:00PM
Thursday, November 23, 2023
Mapping SoTL the Journeys of SoTL Scholars: Planning for the Personal Context
University of Saskatchewan
Melanie Hamilton is the Director of the Centre for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) at the University of Saskatchewan. Dr. Hamilton was awarded an ISSoTL Fellowship in 2020. She is currently President-Elect for ISSoTL Board of Directors. Dr. Hamilton has presented extensively both nationally and internationally on a variety of SoTL topics. Her research includes: SoTL and academic integrity, mid-career faculty and early career researchers, and SoTL Leadership. She is a registered nurse by discipline and taught in the higher education classroom and clinical setting for over 20 years before transitioning into SoTL programming and development. Dr. Hamilton currently teaches in the Graduate Certificate and Masters of SoTL program and is supervising masters students on their SoTL research projects.
Mount Royal University
Cherie Woolmer is Assistant Professor and Canada Research Chair (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning), based in the Mokakiiks Centre for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. Her research program focuses on student-faculty partnerships in higher education, which is informed by critical pedagogy, socio-cultural approaches to change, and the impact of pedagogical partnerships on institutional culture. Her recent publications focus on approaches to co-creating curriculum with students, issues of equity and risk in partnerships, and working with students in the knowledge mobilization of SoTL.
She co-facilitates Mount Royal’s SoTL Development Program, runs workshops and book studies on issues relating to pedagogical partnerships and SoTL, and offers consultations with faculty and students engaged in SoTL.
University College Cork
Anna Santucci is Senior Lecturer (Assoc Professor) in the Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) at University College Cork (Ireland), where she directs the MA in Teaching and Learning for Higher Education and is PI of a nationally funded project to build sustainable capacity for institutional change towards equity-minded inclusive teaching practice. She was previously faculty developer at the University of Rhode Island (USA), facilitating equitable learning, Inclusive Excellence, and High Impact Teaching. Anna is committed to promoting equity and justice in higher education via co-creation, reflection, agency, and authentic partnerships. She is currently Editor of POD Speaks and Chair Elect of POD’s Professional Development Committee. Her international and trans-disciplinary scholarly practice focus on critical pedagogies informed by applied theatre, performance theory, and intercultural studies.
This pre-conference workshop aims to foster active engagement among participants in the transformative shift of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) community. Academics are entering SoTL at various career stages, experiencing transformative shifts in interdisciplinary identities (Santucci & Nasrollahian, 2022). Mid-career faculty (Hamilton, 2022) and postdocs (Woolmer & Suh, 2022) increasingly engage in SoTL, seeking research networks and expanding knowledge beyond disciplines. The participatory research model involving students as partners has provided students with a scholarly home in SoTL and career opportunities.
This evolution challenges traditional roles and transforms expertise perceptions within and beyond SoTL. A noticeable shift indicates more individuals intentionally choosing SoTL as a career, aligned with Boyer's (1990) vision, influenced by diverse national contexts and institutional factors. This raises important questions about envisioning and planning programs that accommodate diverse experiences and expectations, focusing on individual developmental pathways. Informed by research and national efforts in Canada and Ireland, the workshop invites participants to reflect on their contexts and envision potential SoTL career trajectories. Embracing this changing landscape fosters an inclusive and robust SoTL community empowering educators and students
Workshop #2
1:30PM - 4:30PM
Thursday, November 23, 2023
SoTL as collective leadership: Designing SoTL projects to engage colleagues and students as partners towards improving teaching and learning
Mount Royal University
Do you aspire to take up a shared SoTL project with colleagues and/or students? Engaging in SoTL with a team has many benefits including: enlisting diverse perspectives; learning from one another's teaching, research, and disciplinary knowledge and experience; and sharing the research workload across a team. Furthermore, collaborative SoTL projects can transform teaching and learning in a course, department, or faculty. Key to reaching this potential is collective leadership and creating the conditions for agency, voice, and contribution by all. In this workshop we will work together to conceptualize and sketch out collaborative SoTL projects. Josh (the workshop facilitator) will draw on collective leadership literature and his experience of engaging in collaborative SoTL work to help you frame a potential project and consider how you might develop protocols and ways of working to create a space for diverse perspectives, and facilitate effective collaboration. You will leave this workshop with a project concept and pitch to kick start SoTL as collective leadership in your context.
Through his teaching, scholarship, and service Josh seeks to create the conditions to (re)story education as a journey towards agency, wonder, and expansive awareness of oneself-in-the-world. Josh, his wife Melanie, and their four children live in Mohkinstsis near the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers. Josh is a member of the Métis Nation of Alberta and his ancestors trace back to the historic Métis community in the Red River Valley and to European Settler communities. Josh is an Assistant Professor of Education at Mount Royal University. Preceding his current appointment Josh was an Assistant Professor at Ambrose University and prior to that was a teacher and leader in Rocky View Schools. In his current research, Josh is exploring storytelling, Indigenous land based learning, heterarchy, decolonization, and Indigenization in the contexts of learning, teaching, and leadership in k-12 and post secondary education.
Workshop #3
1:30PM - 4:30PM
Thursday, November 23, 2023
Knowledge Mobilization and Translation in SoTL
Mount Royal University
Erika Smith (she/her) is an Associate Professor and Faculty Development Consultant at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. She was primary investigator on a SSHRC Insight Development Grant examining social media and digital literacies in undergraduate learning, and is co-PI on a SSHRC Explore Grant and a Mokakiiks Collaborate Grant conducting a scoping review of social media use in higher education. Erika has written for The Conversation and widely shares and translates knowledge via videos, infographics, and social media. She is a founding member and Associate Editor for Imagining SoTL, a peer-reviewed open access journal. Her research interests include faculty educational development and learning technologies in higher education.
Mount Royal University
Richard Hayman (he/him) is an Associate Professor and Digital Initiatives Librarian at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. As researcher-practitioner with interests that include open access and scholarly communications, educational technologies, and evidence based practice in academic (library) settings, his expertise engages multidisciplinary modes of knowledge exploration, creation, mobilization, and translation. He is committed to open practices in research and ensuring his publications are available via open access, and supporting others seeking to do the same. Richard is currently co-PI on a project funded by a SSHRC Explore grant and a Mokakiiks Centre for Scholarship of Teaching Collaborate grant.
An important yet often underutilized part of realizing impact in our scholarship comes via knowledge mobilization (KM) and knowledge translation (KT) processes, where researchers engage in intentional strategies to connect with a diversity of audiences and to apply scholarly findings in ways that facilitate real-world impacts to policy and/or practice, expanding beyond traditional academic settings. In order to foster KM and KT in SoTL practices and in research promotion generally, necessary in the context of today’s digital environments, an online presence is a critical component of successfully achieving, and promoting, impact in our scholarship. In this workshop, we will outline strategies for engaging different knowledge audiences through open and public KM and KT outputs (e.g., publications, graphics, websites, profile tools, etc.), and through both active and engaged online activities. Using the strategies presented, participants will have a hands-on opportunity to learn and apply skills and techniques that aim to increase the visibility and impact of their scholarship.
As this is a hands-on workshop using digital technologies, participants should come prepared with a laptop. If you do not have access please contact the workshop facilitators in advance so that one can be provided.