The International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) is the primary professional organization for SoTL, particularly for scholars in the US who do not have regional organizations such as STLHE (Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education) in Canada and LatinSoTL in Latin America and the Caribbean. Regardless of geographical and disciplinary identity, ISSOTL members are committed to teaching and learning in higher education as serious intellectual work. Like other professional organizations, ISSOTL supports an academic journal (Teaching and Learning Inquiry) and facilitates an annual conference for member and non-member engagement.
As an international organization, the annual conference is hosted by different geographical regions each year. A small sample of past conference locations have included: Perth, Australia; Utrecht, Netherlands; Kelowan, British Columbia; Atlanta, Georgia, United States; Quebec, Canada; Liverpool, England; and Washington, D.C., United States.
This year, we will be hosting the 20th anniversary ISSOTL conference October 28-31, 2024 at French Lick Resort in French Lick, Indiana. This is a fantastic opportunity for members of the IU community (and those in the midwest more broadly) to attend for the first time. What might you experience as an attendee?
- A geographically and disciplinary diverse group of attendees, all of whom value teaching as a scholarly pursuit. One IUB faculty member shared, “Overall, the ISSOTL conference helped me to reinforce some of my pedagogy in class while learning new pedagogy that I plan to incorporate.”
- Rich, informal conversations with other attendees in between formal programming. A “Conference Commons” space is always a part of the event designed to be a physical hub for this type of interaction.
- A variety of session formats all implementing the ISSOTL conference pedagogy:
- Paper Presentation sessions bundle three thematically similar presentations in which presenters share results of SoTL projects on teaching or inquiry practices.
- Panel sessions provide a forum for topics that benefit from multiple perspectives and an active exchange of ideas. ISSOTL panels prioritize robust interaction among panelists and with the audience.
- Poster sessions are highly engaging opportunities to share both finished and preliminary work, with the goal of both sharing insights and fostering critical engagement through discussion with conference participants. An IUB attendee from the humanities shared, “because there were scholars from a wide variety of fields participating, the poster session also gave me, as someone fairly new to SoTL, a better sense of the variety of work being done across the curriculum.”
- Concurrent Workshops are highly interactive and productive, providing participants with hands-on opportunities to work on a SoTL question, research method, or topic over the course of the 90 minute session.
- Pre-Conference Workshops are extended opportunities to engage participants in hands-on explorations of topics. These sessions last three hours.
- ISSOTL also offers opportunities to learn about and join one (or more) of the eleven available interest groups,
- A conference orientation session we call “New to ISSOTL,” where attendees meet other new attendees and members of the ISSOTL convenings committee, and learn how ISSOTL may be different from your disciplinary conferences
By attending the ISSOTL24 conference, attendees will learn about the field and develop capacity to undertake their own SoTL project. In an effort to support full-time IU faculty on the Bloomington campus interested in, but new to SoTL, we are holding a call for grant applications in the amount of $500. Faculty members who receive the award will be expected to attend and meaningfully engage at the ISSOTL24 conference and provide a reflection of their experience by December 1, 2024. Interested full-time IUB faculty members should apply by Friday, May 10, 2024 via this application form.
To learn more about the upcoming conference, become a member, and/or explore ISSOTL as an organization, visit https://issotl.com/issotl24. (Please note conference registration will open in June 2024.) If you are a graduate student, consider applying for the Emerging Scholars Funding provided by ISSOTL. Please reach out to conference co-chair, Shannon Sipes at sipessm@indiana.edu with questions.
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