The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)

Thank you to everyone who participated in the inaugural, campus-wide UVM SoTL Symposium on May 21, 2024. Faculty from across campus shared their findings and work-in-progress related to teaching and learning research conducted here at UVM. This was the Symposium schedule last year (May 21, 2024). The guest keynote presenter, Bryan Dewsbury, also taught the next-day workshop: Understanding and Using Institutional Data with an Equity Lens to Transform Teaching.

Register for the 2025 SoTL Symposium
May 15th, Innovation Hall

Learn More

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) at UVM is a form of educational research that offers faculty members a way to systematically investigate and answer questions that emerge from their practice as course instructors. SoTL research can involve qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches as well as case study, quasi-experimental, and experimental research designs.

Why engage in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning?

There are many reasons to pursue SoTL research, including:

  • To find answers to questions about teaching practices that you currently use or would like to use
  • To produce evidence about specific teaching practices and share it formally
  • To enhance your disciplinary research with research on your teaching practice, or allowing those with very little research time in their workloads to engage in efficient forms of scholarship
  • To engage with a community of scholars who are interested in improving their teaching practice

Engage with SoTL at UVM

Annual UVM SoTL Symposium

Spring 2025 SoTL Symposium

May 15th in Innovation Hall, Room E105
8:30 am – 3:00 pm
 Register to attend using this form.

The SoTL Symposium is an opportunity for UVM faculty to explore innovative teaching, connect with colleagues, and engage in meaningful discussions about teaching and learning. Presenters will share their work, and attendees will gain valuable insights to enhance their own practice.

2025 Symposium Schedule
The 2025 SoTL Symposium theme is Building Trust, which will be highlighted in the Keynote to be given by Dr. Peter Felten.

Building Community Trust in the Classroom:
Using Research-Based Teaching Practices and Student Feedback to Enable Learning

Trust is important for student learning, motivation, and well-being in higher education. When students trust faculty and their classroom peers, they are more likely to do the hard work required to learn. Unfortunately, many students have had negative experiences in education that lead them to enter our courses with low trust or even mistrust – making them less likely to persist through struggle and more likely to turn to tools like generative AI to do the work for them. What can we as instructors do to build trust through our teaching and grading practices? This interactive session draws on an international study of faculty “trust moves” in large-enrollment courses to explore practical approaches to helping students develop trust in us, each other, and themselves in ways that contribute to their academic success and well-being.  

 

*Peter Felten will also be hosting a separate workshop which compliments his keynote:

Learning In a Time of Generative AI
May 14, 10:30am-12pm
In this workshop, we’ll think together about how to help students commit to building their knowledge, skills, and capacities in our courses – with and without generative AI. You’ll work with colleagues to develop concrete plans to enable meaningful learning in your courses. You will leave this workshop with a better understanding of how to convey your own boundaries around AI use in your classroom activities.
Learn more and register on the event page.

 

SoTL Research Group

Join us in Spring 2025

Please complete this form if you’re interested in becoming involved in this research group.
The CTL will facilitate a new faculty research group in the Spring of 2025, and we’re pleased to welcome a faculty associate and a graduate student on board who are dedicated to support SoTL research this semester. During the Fall and Spring of 2022 and 2023, faculty in the SoTL group worked together and developed strong collegial relationships. Several members worked together to write an NSF grant and other participants worked together on another SoTL study. Members of the community helped each other think through the literature review process and the IRB process, establishing rich long-term connections on campus around teaching and research.

SoTL research generally progresses through the following steps:

  1. Identify a teaching and/or learning question or problem to address
  2. Review related literature to refine research question
  3. Design data collection procedures to answer research question
  4. Obtain research approval from the Institutional Review Board (IRB)
  5. Collect data
  6. Analyze data
  7. Share, present, and/or publish research findings

Gaining Approval for a SoTL study through the UVM Institutional Review Board (IRB)

Before conducting a SoTL study, you will need to submit your plans to the IRB at UVM. Your plans will include the information about the course/s that are being studied. Include the syllabus, the number of students expected, and the method to inform students of the study to opt in or out. This will mean that you will have a syllabus statement and an information sheet for the study.In addition, the IRB will want to see examples of the survey/s or interview questions that you will be using as a part of the study. It is recommended to give the IRB at least 2-3 weeks to review your plans before embarking on the research.

    1. Take the tutorial on the IRB website for Human Subjects Research. Navigate to the UVM IRB website. Sometimes the IRB considers SoTL research as “Not Research” because of the low level of risk associated with many SoTL studies. It is still a good idea to visit the tool available here to determine if your project requires IRB review. Your results from this Qualtrics form are recorded and saved by the IRB.
    2. Navigate to the checklist for a new PI here: Review the checklist to get started with the steps for your study.
    3. You will need to do the Human Subjects Research Training located on the CITI site. This training will take an hour to 90 minutes. Please plan for that amount of time, especially the first time you review it.

SoTL Resources

Podcasts

Journals

  • The UVM David Howe Memorial Library maintains this research guide on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.
  • Kennesaw State University has also created a webpage to assist with locating discipline specific SoTL journals for literature reviews and suggestions for publication.

Videos

SoTL Organizations

SoTL Research Guides

Hopscotch Model Tool: An online research tool developed by Kennesaw State University to assist faculty with the creating thoroughly designed and developed SoTL research projects. The tool provides resources for each step of the SoTL process, as well as a guided form where you can write in your SoTL ideas and create a graphic at the end of the process that outlines your SoTL plan. This is a great tool to use in its entirety or only on parts of SoTL that you need extra assistance with. This tool is freely available to use

SoTL Conferences

Kennesaw State University maintains a list of conferences where SoTL research is presented. This is an important final step in the SoTL process to share your learning.