We encourage our members to join a working group. Help us build a national community to share findings and challenges, and to catalyze SoTL initiatives at the institutional, regional, national, and international levels! If you’re interested in any of the working groups described below, please get in touch with the contact person or with any member of the SoTL Canada executive.
If you have an idea for another initiative, please contact us!
Call for Group Members for 2025 Canadian Collaborative Writing Groups
Applications are due March 10, 2025.
SoTL Canada invites applications for group members for the Canadian Collaborative Writing Group (CCWG) initiative. We invite applications for Group Members for the five groups based on the projects and facilitators we have selected. Below are brief descriptions of each of the five projects.
1. An Empirical Study of Funding for SoTL Research at the National Level in Canada
Motivated by the question of how to increase SoTL funding at the national level, this group will conduct an empirical study to determine what is the current state of national funding in Canada for SoTL research. Using publicly available information including SSHRC competition results and recipients’ webpages and publications, the group will conduct a content analysis to understand who has received funding (recipients’ roles, disciplines and institutions) and for what topics, contexts, and approaches.
Group Lead: Janice Miller-Young
2. Examining Supports and Challenges for Engaging SoTL within Teaching-intensive Spaces
This CCWG aims to explore how the recognition and support of SoTL in teaching-intensive roles/institutions occurs across the country. Simmons and Poole (2016) acknowledged that much of the SoTL work is done by volunteers and explored ways to support and recognize those efforts. Nearly a decade later, this collaborative team will explore pathways for the advancement of SoTL especially in teaching-intensive roles/institutions across the country and throughout a variety of institutional types.
Group Lead: Sonja Johnston
3. Developing a National Guide for Ethics in SoTL
Are you a researcher seeking to address the challenges of SoTL ethics applications? Join our writing group to collaboratively examine systemic barriers in Canada, including inconsistent TCPS2 interpretation, limited training, and institutional constraints. Through an environmental scan, we aim to map current practices and develop comprehensive training guides for both applicants and reviewers. This initiative seeks to build a scholarly community, streamline ethics processes, and enhance the recognition and impact of SoTL within Canadian academia.
Group Leads: Christine Bell and Kate Thompson
4. What Are Your Experiences with Grades? A Phenomenological Study
Regardless of our role(s) in higher education, we have all received grades, and many assign grades to students. Relative to assessment, little literature engages directly with this ubiquitous reality of grades. We will deepen that scholarship by investigating our own lived experiences of grades (see Kensington-Miller et al., 2021; Webb & Welsh, 2019). Ideally, members bring various perspectives (e.g., identities, disciplines, career stages, department norms), opinions, and experience with phenomenology or other qualitative methods.
Group Lead: Catherine Rawn
5. Advancing SoTL in Canadian Colleges: A Collaborative Model for Recognition, Validation, and Growth
This group aims to explore pathways for further fostering SoTL within Canadian colleges, emphasizing the unique contributions of industry-aligned programming. Many college instructors are industry experts who transition into teaching roles, bringing with them a wealth of professional experience from diverse sectors. Areas of potential focus include advocating for the recognition of SoTL as a valuable area of applied research, celebrating and disseminating exemplary practices already underway in college settings, and addressing critical challenges unique to colleges such as instructor workloads that include research hours in addition to teaching and limited institutional support for non-formal SoTL work.
Group Leads: Matthew May and Lisa King
If any of these exciting projects sound interesting to you, please click here (https://forms.gle/k8GgjPpya5HgcMUU7) to apply to be a member of these groups. You will be asked to pick your top two projects, and members will be selected based on interest and an effort to create strong diverse teams.
The current timeline has groups actively working from April 2025 – March 2026 with tentative milestones being:
- 10 March 2025 – SCWG participant applications are due
- 31 March 2025 – SCWG participants contacted
- April – June 2025: SCWGs work at a distance and prepare abstracts, plans, and identified needs for group projects.
- June 2025 – SCWGs work together in Saskatoon: synchronous working session immediately before the STLHE conference. Attend the STLHE conference.
- June 2025 – March 2026: SCWG cohort and individual groups continue working until completion of final submission
- March 2026: Final articles should be ready for submission, recommend presenting at STLHESAPES2026
The SCWGs will convene for a synchronous working session immediately before the STLHESAPES2025 conference in Saskatoon, SK (June 2025). Before and after the conference, the groups will work together online to ultimately produce a publishable manuscript. It is hoped that all ICWG leaders, group facilitators, and participants will attend the pre-conference working session in person, to register for and attend the conference, and to be (or become) SOTL Canada members. We recognize that financial factors may be an issue and encourage groups to develop a personalized plan for their meeting.
Find our upcoming events on the STLHE Events Page.
