New Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Scholars Development and Grant Program
What is SoTL?
The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research field that continues to grow in relevance with the increasing focus on evidence-based pedagogy within post-secondary education around the world. SoTL scholars explore research questions about teaching or learning at the post-secondary level within and across academic disciplines.
Projects range in scope from individual courses to joint-institutional international research. Teaching and learning research projects seek to better understand teaching techniques, technologies, learning processes, relationships, environments, and more. Research questions can be situated within the context of disciplinary knowledge or address broader issues relevant across the academy.
Engaging in scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) research is an excellent way for faculty to improve their teaching and curricula through systematic inquiry into their teaching practices in their own courses; it also provides an opportunity for faculty to provide evidence of effective teaching and, through dissemination of their research, to widen their sphere of influence. To support faculty engaging in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, CELT is offering a new development program.
SoTL Scholars Development and Grant Program
To support faculty in expanding their expertise in research methods and methodologies to systematically investigate teaching and learning, participants will receive training and support to design, conduct, and disseminate a SoTL project during the year-and-a-half long program.
Participants in the program will be offered:
- support for navigating the SoTL literature,
- approximately 50 hours of group, individual, and peer mentoring for project design, data collection, data analysis, and publishing, and
- a research grant to support their SoTL project up to $2500.
During the roughly 16-months of the New SoTL Scholars Development and Grant Program, faculty participants are required to attend cohort meetings (4 meetings, approximately 2 hours each), two all-day meetings (February 2024 and May 2025), and one multi-day on-campus retreat in May 2024.
The project Principal Investigator is required to attend all development program meetings. If the project has co-investigators, the group of investigators will be invited to attend as a team.
Eligibility
Any tenured or tenure-track faculty member, or Limited Term Contract (LTC) that has an existing contact that continues until at least June 2025, is welcome to apply for a SoTL Scholars Grant as a Principal Investigator (PI).
Faculty are permitted to apply as a team and should identify a PI as the main point of contact.
Those holding sessional or one‐year term‐certain appointments may contribute to, and receive funding from, an approved project as a Co-Investigator, but they are not eligible to apply as the PI for a SoTL Scholars Program.
Deadline: Monday, January 22, 2024
Results: Awards will be announced early February. Project funding will begin on April 1, 2024. Final reports are due after the project has ended.
Duration: 16 months
With support from CELT, SoTL Scholars will:
- Project Development: February - August 2024
- Data Collection: September - December 2024
- Data Analysis: Januray - April 2025
- Dissemination Event: May 2025
Call for Proposals
Sample Proposal Form
Award Criteria and Budget Guidelines
Budget Template
For more information about SoTL or the SoTL Scholars Grant Programs, please contact us at CELT@tru.ca.
The SoTL SPARK community of practice supports TRU SoTL Scholars through regular meetings and coaching (by CELT and others) to provide early SoTL researchers with group and individualized support when refining their research question, designing their study, applying for ethics approval, collecting and analyzing data, and disseminating findings in a peer-reviewed publication.
2023 SoTL Grant Reporting Templates
Interim Report Template
Final Report Template
Grant Recipients
2024
| Jessica Allingham; Lindsay Blackstock; Sharon Brewer | Investigating Identity and Belonging in General Chemistry at TRU |
| Jim Hu | Teacher Perspectives on Strategies to Prevent Student Plagiarism Including Plagiarism via Artificial Intelligence |
| Leanne Mihalicz; Sarah Gibson; Harshita Dhiman; Jamie Noakes | Co-operative Education Teaching Beyond the Classroom |
| Natasha Ramroop Singh | Media created by students, for students: fostering community and generosity in the classroom and measuring the impact on learning and application of knowledge |
| Robin Westland | Connection-to-Place: Exploring the Intersections of Student Belonging, Empowerment and Gratitude |
| Twyla Exner | From Algorithms to Art: visual art creation using Artificial Intelligence as a tool and/or medium in post-secondary education |
| Tanya Manning-Lewis | Transformative Pedagogy for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion |
| Tom Waldichuk | Engaging Virtual Field Trips |
| Kimberly Thomas-Francois, Diane Janes | Exploring methods for teaching Social Theories –The use of Service Management Theories for Tourism Education |
2023
| Jiyoung Lee-An (Arts) | The effectiveness of cheat-sheets as a learning tool for critical thinking |
| Jim Hu (Arts) | Focusing on First-Year Student Plagiarism: What, Why, and What to Do about It |
| Tanya Manning-Lewis (EDSW) | Nurturing International Graduate Students’ Research Capabilities through Intentional Practice |
| Leanne Mihalicz (FSD) | A Multi-Discipline Collaboration in Co-operative Education Course Development |
| Patricia Parker (Arts) | Exploring Achievement Emotions in a Novel Achievement Setting |
2022
| Lindsey McKay (Arts) & Marie Bartlett (OL) | Multimodal Debates for Critical Thinking |
| Christine Petersen, Margaret Sonnenfeld (Science) | ’Skateboards, Roundabouts & Blood’ - An Investigative Case Study of Human ABO Blood Types: Does a CSI Context Improve Learning and Engagement? |
| Leanne Mihalicz, Sarah Gibson Jamie Noakes, Harshita Dhiman (FSD) | A Multi-Discipline Collaboration in Co-operative Education Course Development |
| Jennifer Grinstead Mason, Lisa Dyck, Erin Smith-Friesen (WL-Nursing) | Does it stick?: The impact of cultural safety experiential learning events threaded throughout an undergraduate nursing program |
| Jim Hu (EDSW) | Focusing on First-Year-Student Plagiarism and Institutional Support for Prevention |
| Sheila Blackstock, Shari Caputo, Kristen Plowe, James Lomen, Devon Graham, Margaret, Shamro, Elizabeth Andersen, Joyce O’Mahony, Tracy Hoot, Renee Anderson (Nursing) | Innovation in Simulation: Pilot Testing an Educational Intervention on Incivility in Nursing |
2021 - No grants awarded due to COVID-19
2020 - No grants awarded due to COVID-19
2019
| Edward Howe (EDSW) | S-STEP in Comparative and International Education |
| Crystal Huscroft (Science) | Mapping Belonging in a First Year STEM Course |
| Bala Nikku (EDSW), Ken Monroe (OL), Erin May (TRU Library) | Constructing Active International Social Work Teaching and Leaning: Insights from Canada and South Asia |
| Christine Petersen, Margaret Sonnenfeld (Science) | Integrating case studies with laboratory investigation improves deep learning - Skateboards, roundabouts and blood |
| Jane Steiger (EDSW) | Placement through IELTS Scores: Are Students More Likely to Fail? |
2018
| Joe Dobson, Dian Henderson (EDSW) | Investigating the Impact of the Language Learning Centre |
| Florriann Fehr (Nursing) | Exploring nurse educator understanding of medical cannabis and educational practice needs in nurse curriculum |
| Andrew Fergus (BGSoBE) | Virtual Reality (VR) and the learning experience |
| Jane Horton, Doug Knowles (EDSW) | ABE Futures Williams Lake Initiative |
| Christine Miller (EDSW) | Students’ Attitudes Towards and Evaluations of Prospective Open Textbooks |
| Jane Steiger (EDSW) | Placement through IELTS Scores: Are Students More Likely to Fail? |
| Nan Stevens (EDSW) | Protecting the salmon: An environmental awareness project of pollution in our rivers |
TRU Internal Research Fund
The Thompson Rivers University Internal Research Fund (IRF) is provided to support research, including the scholarship of teaching, with the aim of both (1) helping faculty become more competitive for external funding, and (2) scaffolding faculty development, especially in terms of tenure and promotion.
We strongly encourage faculty to consider applying to the IRF to support their SoTL projects.
External SoTL Awards
BCcampus Scholarly Teaching Fellows
The Scholarly Teaching Fellows program is designed to achieve the following results:
- Support educators to conduct research on teaching and learning (i.e., scholarly teaching, scholarly inquiry, action research, scholarship of teaching and learning projects);
- Support development and dissemination of evidence-based teaching practices that focus on student success and learning in BC post-secondary education;
- Help educators participate in scholarly work about teaching and learning through conference attendance, research support, and dissemination of their work.
