Scholarship for Teaching and Learning (SoTL) at UTM: Guidelines for Working with Educational Developers
The educational development team at the RGASC supports teaching and learning at UTM. They work directly with instructors across the campus in their development of pedagogical practices. At the classroom level, instructors can support student learning by taking a scholarly approach to better understanding how their teaching practices can help or hinder learning. This kind of pedagogical research, also called the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), can be used to improve learner experiences and better align classroom teaching practices. SoTL research can also be shared with fellow teaching and learning communities outside of classrooms and institutions. Educational developers can support these efforts by helping instructors develop the necessary research knowledge, skills, and agency to engage in these forms of scholarship that may be new to them or outside the scope of their discipline. Below is a guide outlining some milestones along an instructor’s SoTL research journey, as well as the support that educational developers can/cannot provide to instructors.
If you would like to meet with an educational developer to discuss your SoTL research, please email eddev.utm@utoronto.ca.
| SoTL Research Journey Milestones | Educational Developers Can | Educational Developers Cannot |
| Literature Review for SoTL | - Provide resources (e.g., journal articles, journals, SoTL database repositories) as starting points for SoTL inquiry
- Connect instructors to librarians for literature support
- Ask questions and provide considerations on literature review drafts
| - Write or re-write literature reviews
- Conduct systematic literature searches for instructors
- Train student research assistants on how to do SoTL literature reviews
|
| Developing SoTL Research Questions | - Provide questions for instructors to reflect on with respect to their teaching and classroom observations to generate problem statements as areas of further inquiry
- Provide support with the refinement process of generating SoTL research questions
| - Write SoTL research questions for instructors
- Cannot propose SoTL research projects for instructors.
|
| Navigating Research Ethics for SoTL | - Provide resources for instructors to review the best practices of doing SoTL research with their students
- Connect instructors with Research Ethics administrators for further ethics consultation on their SoTL project
- Ask questions and provide considerations on SoTL research ethics protocols
| - Complete and submit research ethics protocols for instructors’ SoTL projects
- Train Research Assistants on the SoTL research ethics
|
| Data Collection and Research Design | - Provide feedback on the instrument development process for data collection tools (surveys, interview and focus group protocols)
- Provide guidance on different research designs and research paradigms common in SoTL research that may not be known in instructor’s discipline
| - Develop the data collection tools for the instructor
- Conduct data collection (administer and collect survey data, run focus groups, and interviews)
- Be the sole decision maker for the research design and data collection process
- Train Research Assistants in data collection and SoTL research design
|
| Data Analysis | - Provide resources on data analysis methods (Quantitative, Qualitative, Mixed Methods Research)
| - Analyze data for the instructor
- Train Research Assistants to analyze data
|
| Writing/Reporting | - Provide questions and considerations on journal article drafts
- Provide resources that may assist the instructor with their writing
| - Write or re-write any part of an instructor’s articles of SoTL research
- Submit journal articles, popular press, or conference submissions on behalf of instructors
- Copy-edit/format journal articles, manuscripts, book chapters etc.
- Submit conference proposals on behalf of the instructor’s SoTL projects
|
