Develop an effective SoTL project by participating in activities that address the fundamental work of doing SoTL, drawing on our SoTL Guide, or applying for a SoTL grant.
SoTL Project Development Workshops
SoTL Project Development: A Three-Part Workshop
Fall 2016: Nov 23 (1-4pm) and Nov 30, (1-4pm) (This workshop spans two sessions, with some independent light reading and planning in between.)
Winter 2017: April 4 (1-4pm) and April 18 (1-4pm) (This workshop spans two sessions, with some independent light reading and planning in between.)
Engaging in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: SoTL Foundations for Graduate Students
Fall 2016: December 5 (1-3pm)
Winter 2017: March 30 (10-noon)
The SoTL Guide
The SoTL Guide is an online resource with two sections: a brief introduction to understanding SoTL and doing SoTL, and a tutorial of the basics of designing a SoTL project. Our SoTL blog, The SoTL Guide, is also linked from this site.
Support for Teaching and Learning Grants
The University of Calgary Teaching and Learning Grants, which are offered through the Office of the Provost and administered by the Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning, includes a SoTL Stream to support individual and collaborative SoTL projects and a Lesson Study Stream to support this specific type of team-based SoTL project.
Request a Third-Party Proxy for Recruitment
A best practice in ethical SoTL projects is using a third party outside of your project for recruitment activities (e.g., administering informed consent forms and surveys). This practice "eliminates peer pressure and allows students who are not interested in participating to easily decline with anonymity" and helps eliminate undue influence (from the University of Calgary's CFREB: "Ethical Considerations for Research in University of Calgary Courses" page 2).
The Taylor Institute employs a few SoTL Research Assistants who may be available for this service, depending on their schedules. To request such support, please do the following:
- Put in request at least 4 weeks before the date of the class visit for recruitment, informed consent, and/or survey administration. This will give us time to check the availability of SoTL Research Assistants who will facilitate the survey. Send your request to Andrea Derksen at ajderkse@ucalgary.ca.
- SoTL RAs will schedule a 5- to 10- minute time slot to visit the class in order to deliver instructions. During this time, the instructor will step out of the class.
- If you need us to set up the survey on our account, we will need a copy of that survey at least 2 weeks in advance.
- If you have designed your survey, you will need to provide the link to our SoTL RA.
- The RA will close the survey at the specified time.
- You will need to observe the current ethics protocols for communicating the research to your students. (For details and questions, see the University of Calgary's CFREB site. For a brief introduction and some guiding principles in ethical SoTL, see "Doing SoTL Ethically" on the Taylor Institute's SoTL Guide.)
