Teaching & Learning Inquiry is the open access journal of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL). TLI publishes peer-reviewed scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) research in higher education across disciplinary, institutional, and geographical contexts.
Libraries and Cultural Resources, University of Calgary
Facilitating a Public SoTL Writing Group: For the Public or with the Public?
The concept of public SoTL, aimed to extend the field’s influence beyond academia, challenged writing group facilitators to redefine their expectations and actions as traditional approaches fell short, prompting a reevaluation. This essay chronicles the journey of the facilitators in the inaugural ICWG-Public SoTL cohort, exploring what it means to facilitate a project with influence beyond academia. The facilitators of this public SoTL writing group encountered numerous challenges, including redefining their roles and expectations, engaging with public audiences, and applying critical pedagogy frameworks. This reflective essay shares their facilitation story and the importance of understanding public SoTL’s purpose, audience, and products, which led to a framework for future ICWG-Public SoTL facilitators. Their public SoTL facilitation framework with a critical lens emphasizes the need for a collaborative, iterative approach that prioritizes the needs of the public over traditional academic outputs, ultimately advocating for a more inclusive and impactful form of scholarship.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sharon Ultsch, Catherine Ford https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A Protocol for Minimalist Curriculum Mapping
Curriculum mapping is a powerful tool that teachers and pedagogical developers can use to improve courses. It can, however, be both costly and time-consuming. This article describes a protocol for minimalist curriculum mapping that is easy to implement, highly flexible, and requires no specialized software. The described method is paired with the use of supplemental instruction, allowing access to high-quality information without the need to conduct interviews or distribute questionnaires. In the case described, minimalist curriculum mapping was used to determine the optimal use of digital tools for online courses. The protocol described can easily be adapted to serve other purposes. It can also be used without reliance on supplemental instruction. It is argued that this makes the protocol a simple and flexible way to reap some of the benefits of curriculum mapping without incurring all of the costs.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sama Agahi, Håkan Salwén https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Let’s Play! Engaging College Students in Mini Play Sessions, Perspectives, and Reflections
This in-progress study explores the integration of play sessions into higher education classrooms as a strategy to reduce student stress and enhance overall well-being. With increasing levels of stress and mental health challenges among college students, faculty often struggle with providing adequate support, particularly as most are not trained mental health professionals. Through initial play sessions conducted in two different courses, students reported significant shifts from negative emotions, such as stress and overwhelm, to more positive states of happiness, excitement, and calmness. This aligns with existing research suggesting that structured play and wellness activities can improve mental health and reduce stress. The study also considers the potential for play sessions to offer a low-barrier, creative approach for faculty to foster a more supportive and engaging learning environment. Over the next academic year, routine play sessions will be implemented across five courses, with pre- and post-surveys used to assess their impact on student stress levels, focus, readiness for class, and overall engagement. The findings from this study aim to contribute to the growing body of research on wellness pedagogy, offering insights on the long-term benefits of integrating play into higher education settings. Further exploration is needed to systematically gauge the levels of impact over time and determine the broader implications of this approach for student well-being and academic success.
Copyright (c) 2025 Marna Winter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Superficially Plausible Outputs from a Black Box: Problematising GenAI Tools for Analysing Qualitative SoTL Data
Generative AI tools (GenAI) are increasingly used for academic tasks, including qualitative data analysis for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). In our practice as academic developers, we are frequently asked for advice on whether this use for GenAI is reliable, valid, and ethical. Since this is a new field, we have not been able to answer this confidently based on published literature, which depicts both very positive as well as highly cautionary accounts. To fill this gap, we experiment with the use of chatbot style GenAI (namely ChatGPT 4, ChatGPT 4o, and Microsoft Copilot) to support or conduct qualitative analysis of survey and interview data from a SoTL project, which had previously been analysed by experienced researchers using thematic analysis. At first sight, the output looked plausible, but the results were incomplete and not reproducible. In some instances, interpretations and extrapolations of data happened when it was clearly stated in the prompt that the tool should only analyse a specified dataset based on explicit instructions. Since both algorithm and training data of the GenAI tools are undisclosed, it is impossible to know how the outputs had been arrived at. We conclude that while results may look plausible initially, digging deeper soon reveals serious problems; the lack of transparency about how analyses are conducted and results are generated means that no reproducible method can be described. We therefore warn against an uncritical use of GenAI in qualitative analysis of SoTL data.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mirjam Sophia Glessmer, Rachel Forsyth https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
SoTL in Translation, SoTL as Translation
Introduction to Volume 13 of Teaching & Learning Inquiry.
Copyright (c) 2025 Kelly Schrum, Earle Abrahamson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Context Matters—Advancing SoTL through Collaborative Inquiry
Introduction to the 2023 ICWG Collection.
Copyright (c) 2025 Earle Abrahamson, Andrea Webb, Barbara Kensington-Miller https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Re-thinking SoTL for the Age of GenAI: Diffracted, Entangled, and Human
The rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) necessitates a re-evaluation of established Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) frameworks. This paper presents a novel approach to pedagogical research through the lens of diffraction, enabling educators to embrace uncertainty, build trust with technology, and reconceptualize practices within a GenAI-led education landscape. We offer five key propositions, each paired with prompts to support collaborative exploration of GenAI. These propositions advocate for a multidisciplinary and context-aware methodology that moves beyond traditional SoTL perspectives and reflective practice. Framing GenAI as both a challenge and an opportunity, we call for a reimagining of SoTL as a dynamic, inclusive and entangled field capable of addressing the complexities of AI-enhanced learning environments. The diffractive approach foregrounds human and non-human entanglement, creating transformative pedagogical practices. Designed as a practical and theoretical guide, our propositions and prompts offer SoTL scholars new ways to engage with GenAI through posthuman, critically informed lenses.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jennie Mills, Tina Beynen, Ivy Chia Sook May, Rachel Fitzgerald, Kimberly A. Hall, Evelyn Lai, Jon Mason, Samantha Newell https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
[Book Review] Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape in Higher Education by Mary C. Wright
Review of Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape in Higher Education by Mary C. Wright.
Copyright (c) 2025 Catherine O'Mahony, Alexandra Mihai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
[Book Review]: Reimagining Scholarship in Higher Education—A Review of Sam Illingworth’s Bridging Scholarship and Practice in Higher Education
Review of Bridging Scholarship and Practice in Higher Education by Sam Illingworth.
Copyright (c) 2025 Earle Abrahamson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
[Podcast Review]: The 3QTL Podcast by Derritt Mason
Review of the 3QTL Podcast, by executive producer Dr. Derritt Mason
Copyright (c) 2025 Kate Thompson, Jill Marie McSweeney-Flaherty https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A Systems-Inspired Taxonomy of SoTL Research: Increasing the Accessibility and Visibility of this Heterogeneous Field
The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is a vast, multi-epistemic field which can be challenging for new and experienced scholars to navigate. This paper introduces a systems-inspired taxonomy of SoTL designed to enhance accessibility, visibility, and knowledge organization within the field. Drawing from an iterative and extensive process involving a literature review, thematic coding of published SoTL inquiries from eight different journals, and international community consultations, the resulting taxonomy in its current form has six trees or “dimensions.” These include who is being studied, what aspects of learning are investigated, how learning is supported, where and when studies take place, why students learn, and the inquiry approaches used. The taxonomy serves multiple purposes: providing researchers with a structured way to situate their work, guiding literature and scoping reviews, and improving the discoverability of SoTL studies through more deliberate keyword selection. By adopting a systems-thinking perspective, this taxonomy balances structure with flexibility, offering a navigational tool rather than a rigid classification scheme. It is intended to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive, and should be regularly updated through ongoing community input and engagement in order to ensure it remains reflective of emerging research and practice in the field.
Copyright (c) 2025 Janice Miller-Young, Jeffrey W. Paul, Renato B. Rodrigues, Jillian S. Cicek https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
“Visions of the Possible”: Collaborative-Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching and Learning
In this article we explore the challenges and rewards of a multi-year, multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional approach to collaborative teaching and learning. What does it mean to teach across disciplines and what might this look like for our students who are emerging professionals from very different fields of study? What are the challenges of adopting a collaborative model for teaching and learning? How might we envision new instructional approaches that positively impact student learning and success while simultaneously addressing the needs of our community partners? What new pedagogical approaches are emerging that might address challenges within higher education? Our inquiry here is focused on what might be if we make the time to explore new ways of teaching both in and out of the classroom. Following Hutchings’ (2000) call for “visions of the possible” in higher education, we present three distinct case studies that demonstrate the potential of deeply engaged, collaborative teaching and learning across disciplines. We ask what this experimental approach might mean for future educators and students alike.
Copyright (c) 2025 Holly Cusack-McVeigh, Mark Wilson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
From the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to the Scholarly Institution: A STEM Perspective
There has been a documented increase in SoTL activity, which in the United Kingdom (UK) may be a result of the heightened focus on teaching due to increased regulation and monitoring, competition, changes in the workforce structure, and quality enhancement within the sector. STEM academics specifically face challenges in engaging with SoTL as the methodologies used differ from their discipline training. Offering a STEM perspective, we provide four case studies at the institutional and national level of interventions in STEM teaching to address these challenges, namely: conducting educational research with students as partners, establishing a faculty based SoTL centre, reward and recognition of staff, and the formation of a national SoTL conference for STEM educators. We discuss the extent to which the case studies demonstrate Felton’s principles of good scholarship and propose the concept of a “scholarly institution” as one which systematically nurtures and harvests SoTL research (internal and external to the institution) by establishing structures and cultures that foster evidence-informed teaching and learning practices. We conclude that to truly realise the benefits of SoTL, practitioners not only need support to undertake SoTL inquiries, but that the institutions must commit to using SoTL to inform their policies and procedures as well.
Copyright (c) 2025 Trevor D. Collins, Diane Butler, Sarah N. Gretton, Neil A. Williams https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Knowledge Surveys: An Effective and Robust Student Self-Assessment and Learning Tool
Knowledge surveys (KS) are a student self-assessment tool consisting of an ability statement for each learning objective in a course. Students respond by rating their confidence in performing a specified skill. Pre-unit KS transparently communicate learning objectives, alert faculty to self-assessed knowledge and skills students possess as they enter a unit of instruction and support metacognitive learning through the unit’s lessons and activities. Post-unit KS allow comparison of student self-assessed learning with faculty assessments of student learning, providing feedback to support continued development of self-assessment skills, as well as metacognitive and self-regulated learning skills. This study synthesizes several semesters of KS implementation across six different engineering courses, taught by six instructors utilizing multiple assessment types (exams, technical writing, design projects) and delivery modes (in person, hybrid, online). Results indicate that student KS scores aligned with faculty assessments, and alignment improved with cycles of performance and feedback in a subset of courses with similar assessment types. Student feedback indicates value in KS as a learning guide and as a helpful addition to these courses for learning and self-assessment, with student quotes demonstrating positive student learning practices and evidence of metacognitive thinking. Faculty find KS easily manageable; they also appreciate how KS help maximize alignment within their courses and provide additional data to support student learning. Knowledge surveys are thus an effective, robust, and relatively easy-to-implement method to systematically incorporate a self-assessment component into a variety of courses.
Copyright (c) 2025 Joel Sloan, Timothy Frank, Lauren Scharff, Karin Becker https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Agency Development and Valuing Peer Perspectives: Lessons from an Intervention to Enhance STEM University Students’ Feedback Literacy
In order for students to benefit from feedback, they must develop their feedback literacy. To investigate the extent to which informing students about feedback knowledge and scaffolding practice for making sense of feedback increases feedback literacy, we conducted a skills-based intervention study. The results showed that the intervention increased students’ feedback knowledge, that is, their understanding about the purpose of feedback and the need to engage with it proactively. However, the intervention did not increase participants’ feedback literacy to a statistically significant extent. This may be due to the centrality of learner agency in feedback literacy and lack of time for this complex construct to develop. Findings from post-intervention focus group interviews revealed variation in students’ unders­tanding and agency in relation to engaging with feedback and the importance of including various opportunities to develop agency as part of feedback literacy training, including through peer perspective sharing. Cultural influences on feedback processes appeared to be less significant than anticipated. Instead, individual differences, such as personal interpretations of feedback and associated emotional responses, were more likely to create barriers, and should therefore be considered when developing feedback literacy. This paper offers suggestions for implementing more effective feedback literacy development opportunities, including those that emphasise building on a foundation of feedback knowledge and the role of peers and peer feedback. We propose that future studies should develop an integrative approach to feedback literacy training that acknowledges the complexity and time demands of agency development.
Copyright (c) 2025 Luotong Hui, Kate Ippolito, Magda Charalambous https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Co-Creation in Practice: Redesigning a Geoscience Bachelor Course
Co-creation has the potential to enhance the quality of university education through its impact on course delivery and the participants’ learning experiences, but it is often not straightforward to realise. We present a case study of a student-initiated co-creation project where students, course teachers, and student administration worked together to improve an introductory geoscience course at a Norwegian university. A thematic analysis of participants’ reflections and interviews shows positive meta-cognitive, affective, and social effects similar to the results of other studies on co-creation. Students and staff brought complementary expertise to course development, and establishing a common pedagogical framework provided a shared language and basis for informed argumentation and negotiation. The process of co-creation also required an expertise of its own. For example, students initially struggled to recognise how they could contribute to the project, and while examples of other co-creation projects were helpful, students found local (culturally, geographically, subject-specific) examples of student involvement most relatable. We discuss how equity and power concerns were addressed in the working group, and how course representatives and discussion-based midterm evaluations partly addressed diversity and inclusivity challenges. The alignment of student initiative, access to funding for student salaries, and teachers primed to try a co-creation approach all contributed to this co-creation project. This suggests that even in an educational system known for its flat hierarchy and promotion of democracy and equality, catalysts and explicit support are important to promote co-creation.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gard L. Andersen, Kristian B. Bakken, Adriana A. Dauvi, K. Dunnett, Torjus Haakens, Ida H. M. Hansen, Karianne S. Lilleøren, A. Mattias Lundmark, Pia A. B. Pedersen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
“I’m Not Worried about Robots Taking Over the World. I Guess I’m Worried about People”: Emoting, Teaching, and Learning with Generative AI
Qualitative studies that examine the impact of generative AI technologies on higher education remain scant. Whether it is the ethical dimensions of modeling human emotions within these technologies or the authentic emotional reactions to these technologies and their outputs—emotionality is at the centre of generative AI discourse. This paper reports findings from a study exploring educators’ emotional responses to the integration of generative AI and higher education. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 37 multidisciplinary faculty at the University of Toronto Mississauga (26% response rate). We first describe the data collection process, including an overview of the institutional context. We then outline a historical context to frame our examination of educators’ self-reported emotional responses to teaching, learning, and living with generative AI. Most respondents expressed ambivalence of some variety, and we noted disciplinary patterns regarding the type of fears and excitements respondents reported. The paper concludes with two pedagogical provocations.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sarah Seeley, Michael Cournoyea https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Improving Knowledge Integration in Medical Education through Creative Tasks: Addressing the Challenges Exacerbated by the War in Ukraine
Knowledge integration is a common challenge in medical education, but its importance is even more pronounced in times of crisis and prolonged disruption of the educational process. In this article, we explore how the use of creative and generative teaching and learning activities, including presentations, drawing association maps, role-playing, and video production, influences students’ knowledge integration in a medical degree programme in Ukraine that has been affected by the ongoing war in the country. By analyzing students’ responses to reflection prompts and the teacher’s notes, we found that using these activities made the students’ learning process more visible to other students and the teacher, relieved some of the pressure on the students, and encouraged students to form learning communities. At the same time, the unfamiliar nature of these activities can reveal new sensitivities in students. The application of these activities also requires more preparation time and concentration on the part of the teacher. Based on our findings, we propose that creative and generative activities are particularly flexible in helping to support knowledge integration in both academically well-performing and weaker-performing students. We also suggest that their contribution to maintaining meaningful social relationships between students is particularly important in times of disruption caused by external factors.
Copyright (c) 2025 Adrian Tomey, Kristof Tomej https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Student Motivation in Cross-Disciplinary Bildung Education: Learnings from a Case Study in the Netherlands
There is a growing interest in cross-disciplinary education aimed at instilling an open mindset in students in order to help them navigate complex societal issues. Since this requires commitment to learning, self-reflection, and venturing out of the “known,” it is essential to understand student motivation for this type of learning that goes beyond traditional academic pursuits. This article explores first-year students’ motivation in the Broader Mind Course (BMC) at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU). By drawing on qualitative interview data (n=23) of all actors involved—students, teachers, course designers, and management—we explore what elements support or impede participation, using self-determination theory as a lens. The results show that a balance between organisational guidance and freedom of choice should be ensured (autonomy), traditional external incentives and scaffolding are needed (competence), and educators should create a secure atmosphere (relatedness). The results of this study provide useful insights for the development of innovative and engaging cross-disciplinary courses for students’ personal, social, and academic development.
Copyright (c) 2025 Frederique A. Demeijer, Robin van der Velde, Nanon H. M. Labrie, Marjolein B. M. Zweekhorst https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Asking “How” and “Why” and “Under What Conditions” Questions: Using Critical Realism to Study Learning and Teaching
Research paradigms offer a way for scholars to design, communicate, and reflect on their research effectively. A paradigm encapsulates the researcher’s worldview, including the epistemology, ontology, and axiology of the research. Researchers are often initiated, whether explicitly or implicitly, into particular paradigms through graduate study. This can cause difficulties in the multidisciplinary landscape of SoTL where practitioners either have to learn a new domain and/or communicate to peers outside their discipline. Learning about common research paradigms can help address these challenges. Four commonly used paradigms that have been proposed as relevant for SoTL research are post-positivist, critical realist, interpretive, and transformative (including indigenous). This article describes the basic tenets of critical realism and discusses them in relation to SoTL research. It i) describes key concepts within critical realism, including a stratified reality and a focus on causal mechanisms and the relationship between structure and agency, ii) explains how critical realism can be applied to studying learning and what this means for choice of SoTL methodology and method, and iii) describes the key aspects of two published SoTL studies. The paper concludes by suggesting that critical realism can enhance the theoretical rigor, practical utility, and interdisciplinarity of SoTL research.
Copyright (c) 2025 Janice Miller-Young https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Impact of Classroom Architecture and Pedagogical Strategies on University Students’ Disruptive Phone Usage in Calculus
Personal phone usage—from group messaging to social media scrolling to online window shopping—is widespread in university classrooms. Numerous studies have documented how the presence of cell phones in the undergraduate classroom is more harmful than beneficial. Nevertheless, many educators are reluctant to enact and enforce a phone-free classroom, believing that, as adults, undergraduate students have the right to self-regulate. In this study, we utilize classroom observation data to explore how features of the learning environment, such as classroom architecture and instructor pedagogical strategies, can impact students’ propensity to reach for their phones in the middle of a calculus lesson. Further, we use student survey responses to compare overall phone usage to confidence in their knowledge and conceptual understanding of a lesson’s primary learning objective. Our results suggest that the learning environment itself, in particular the pedagogical strategies employed and the classroom architecture, can foster self-regulation amongst students without the instructor having to actively enforce a strict no-cell phones policy.
Copyright (c) 2025 Isabel Harris, Melinda Lanius https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Large Online Courses: A Constraint on Instructor Presence and Higher-Level Thinking
A growing body of literature claims instructor presence is crucial in an online course learning environment. In this paper, the authors contribute to this literature with empirical research related to instructor presence and how class size influences it. This study investigated whether class size was predictive of students’ ratings of instructor presence. The findings of this study suggest that in courses with higher-level skills as learning objectives, as the class size increased, students rated instructor presence lower. This result affirms existing research that explains courses that encompass constructivist skills or higher-level thinking benefit from the community of inquiry model. This model makes clear that instructor presence is imperative for effective student learning, and the implication of this directive is that class size needs to be adjusted (in many cases, it needs to be lowered) to provide a teaching and learning environment adequate for strong instructor presence. The ripple effect of this yields positive student satisfaction and student success online.
Copyright (c) 2025 Linda Carozza, Hilary E. Davis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Improving the Pedagogical Skills of PASS Leaders on the Job with Synchronous Feedback: A Feasibility Study
Peer assisted study sessions (PASS), also known as supplemental instruction, are structured peer guided sessions linked to a specific course, led by experienced and trained students called PASS-leaders. These PASS-leaders undergo several days of training before running their first session and receive supervision and feedback “on the job.” Research suggests that training improves student outcomes whereby supervision is considered best practice, as required by PASS protocols. However, it is unclear what type of supervision best supports PASS-leaders. Thus far, studies have not compared different methods for on-the-job training. Current practice involves supervisors observing PASS sessions without intervening but providing post hoc feedback. While this prevents undermining the PASS leaders, it delays their ability to act on feedback. This study, carried out at an institution for initial teacher education, developed and tested a method for providing immediate feedback using a bug-in-ear device linked to a live-stream. Six PASS-leaders were observed during four to six sessions each, receiving either synchronous feedback with a bug-in-ear or in-person asynchronous post hoc feedback. In group interviews PASS-leaders reported appreciating the immediacy of synchronous feedback which allowed them to act in real-time. The surveys after each lesson indicated that they felt significantly more confident about teaching following live feedback. They described the supervisor as an invisible helper, providing support or assistance. Because the bug-in-ear method could only provide feedback on visible instructional and pedagogical actions, both PASS-leaders and PASS-supervisors recommended using this as a supplement to a pre-session briefing and a post-session debrief.
Copyright (c) 2025 Louise Alix Taylor, Izaak Dekker https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
An Examination of Well-Being and Retention during the Transition of Learning Modality in a University Academic Department
The COVID-19 pandemic had an immediate impact and a long-lasting toll on the well-being of students and faculty, influencing their performance and affecting retention rates on college campuses. This study focused on the entire academic department, rather than an individual faculty member or peer, as the department serves as the immediate learning environment, potentially fostering diversity, equity, belonging, and inclusion (DEBI). The department is an academic home where students experience autonomy, relatedness, and competence. A total of 93 department members participated in a survey that elicited their perspectives and experiences related to retention, DEBI, and basic psychological needs during the first semester transitioning back from remote to in-person learning within the pandemic context. Results revealed that while the department is inclusive, there is room for improvement. Although many students and faculty/staff reported struggling during the transition, few expressed a decision to take a break from school/work. Students who were motivated to stay in school scored higher on departmental DEBI climate and basic psychological needs than those considering a break. Implications for department- and university-level policies and programs are discussed, focusing on addressing the well-being and retention of students and faculty/staff.
Copyright (c) 2025 Amy M. Bardwell, Chang Su-Russell https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Best Practice for Online Tests: How Long Do Students Actually Need?
Multiple choice tests are unlikely to disappear from formal education, partly due to the ease of large-scale administration and grading and their similarity to licensing exams in various fields (e.g., nursing). Despite post-secondary instructors’ best intentions in giving students adequate time to complete multiple choice assessments, it can be difficult to judge the amount of time that is actually required by students, while attempting to maintain test integrity and minimize cheating behaviour. Further, much of the available literature on this topic focuses on students enrolled in four-year university programs, which are likely to differ from other post-secondary programs (i.e. two- and three-year diploma programs). The present study aims to quantify the amount of time students in two- and three-year programs actually used to answer multiple choice questions in a fully online, asynchronous, introduction to psychology course, as well as examine whether differences exist in the time used on two types of assessments: small quizzes with unlimited attempts and unit tests with only one attempt. Results showed that students used on average 39 seconds per question, though they used significantly more time on summative assessments (unit tests) compared to formative quizzes. These results can help guide pedagogical decisions, but it is also important to consider learner-specific characteristics which might affect how much time they use (or need) to complete multiple choice assessments.
Copyright (c) 2025 Lynne N. Kennette, Dawn McGuckin https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Pedagogies of Resilience amidst a Planetary Crisis: From Mind Training to Social and Environmental Justice
This article offers a circular framework for teaching and learning about resilience in higher education contexts. In order to navigate considerations of resilience as both potentially problematic and helpful, our framework stresses the importance of distinguishing between two different sets of questions: a) questions about the possibilities that humans have for cultivating qualities and skills that promote their flourishing, such as attention and mental balance, and b) questions about system change and social design from a social and ecological justice perspective. These questions are deeply implicated with one another, so one of the aims of our framework is to encourage students to explore the unity and mutual interdependencies between the two sets, as well as the possibilities of creating virtuous circles where the quest for nature restoration, social justice, and mental health sustain each other. In combining elements of “learning how” and “learning about,” this framework aspires to provide students with tools to make up their own minds about resilience, a term that has become all too present in public discourse and yet remains contentious. Alongside this framework, we also offer a summary of our pedagogical approach, one that stresses reflection, situated learning, and the use of the university campus as a playground to test ideas and build communities of learning.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rubén Flores, Ingrid Holme, Liam Fogarty https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Implementing Ungrading in Undergraduate Exercise Physiology: Student Perceptions of Learning
Ungrading or alternative grading has gained popularity among undergraduate educators. The purpose of this study was to compare students’ perceptions of learning and two methods of grading in an upper-level exercise physiology course with third- and fourth-year undergraduate students. Two ungraded (UG1 and UG2) and two traditionally graded (TG1 and TG2) sections were compared. A weighted grading scheme was used in the TG sections. In the UG sections students received a final letter grade which was co-decided between the student and instructor. To evaluate the grading methods between the four sections, the researcher used deidentified student self-reflections and anonymous student opinion surveys (TG1: n=18, TG2: n=13, UG1: n=19, UG2: n= 12). Significant differences between sections centered on perceived learning (F3,45=4.18; p=0.01; n2= 0.22). Perceived learning was significantly lower in TG2 than UG1 (p=0.007), UG2 (p=0.005), and TG1 (p=0.008). Significant differences also existed between courses for rating of the evaluation and grading techniques (F3,45=10.66; p<0.001; n2= 0.42). Evaluation and grading techniques rating was significantly lower in TG2 than UG1 (p<0.001), UG2 (p<0.001), and TG1 (p=0.006). 87.1% (n=27/31) of the students indicated they agreed or strongly agreed that their learning was enhanced by UG. Qualitative analysis of open-ended reflection questions revealed students felt they understood content better with less grade-based anxiety. Students in the ungrading sections more regularly reflected on their learning and appreciated feedback and opportunities to revise mistakes. Overall, ungrading was effectively implemented in an undergraduate exercise physiology course.
Copyright (c) 2025 Mary Stenson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
SoTL in Latin America: Bridging Cultures, Transforming Teaching and Learning
ABSTRACT The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is rapidly emerging as a transformative force in Latin American higher education, bridging diverse cultures and reshaping pedagogical practices to meet the region’s unique challenges. Inspired by Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy—which emphasizes education as a means of social transformation and empowerment—this article examines how SoTL integrates interculturality, identity, and equity into university education across Latin America. By aligning teaching and learning with the rich sociocultural realities of the region, SoTL effectively addresses educational inequalities and promotes inclusive access to learning opportunities. Institutions have embraced innovative practices such as faculty development programs, the integration of SoTL methodologies across various disciplines, and active student participation in pedagogical innovation. National policies and regional collaborations, notably the formation of LatinSoTL, have further propelled this movement, fostering a culture of reflective practice and continuous improvement. Despite significant advancements, challenges remain. These include the cultural integration of SoTL concepts, heavy faculty workloads, limited interdisciplinary programs, technological disparities, and the imperative to align educational practices with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Overcoming these obstacles requires sustained efforts in faculty development, investment in technological infrastructure, and supportive policies that recognize and reward teaching excellence. The impact of SoTL is evident in the growing valuation of teaching, increased student engagement, and policy shifts that prioritize teaching in academic evaluations. By embracing SoTL and the principles of Freire’s critical pedagogy, Latin American institutions not only improve educational outcomes, but also contribute valuable insights to the global discourse on higher education. This article highlights the critical role of culturally responsive education in transforming teaching and learning, ultimately bridging cultures and fostering social change throughout the region. RESUMEN La investigación académica sobre la docencia y el aprendizaje (scholarship of teaching and learning, SoTL) está emergiendo rápidamente como una fuerza transformadora en la educación superior latinoamericana, estableciendo puentes entre diversas culturas y reformulando las prácticas pedagógicas para enfrentar los desafíos particulares de la región. Inspirado en la pedagogía crítica de Paulo Freire—la cual enfatiza la educación como una vía hacia la transformación social y el empoderamiento—este artículo analiza cómo SoTL integra la interculturalidad, la identidad y la equidad en la educación universitaria a lo largo de América Latina. Al alinear la enseñanza y el aprendizaje con las complejas realidades socioculturales regionales, SoTL aborda eficazmente las desigualdades educativas y promueve un acceso inclusivo a las oportunidades de aprendizaje. Diversas instituciones han adoptado prácticas innovadoras, tales como programas de desarrollo académico para docentes, la integración de metodologías SoTL en múltiples disciplinas y la participación activa de estudiantes en innovaciones pedagógicas. Las políticas nacionales y colaboraciones regionales, particularmente mediante la conformación de redes como LatinSoTL, han impulsado aún más este movimiento, fomentando una cultura de práctica reflexiva y mejora continua. Pese a estos importantes avances, subsisten diversos desafíos. Entre ellos destacan la integración cultural de los conceptos de SoTL, la sobrecarga laboral docente, la limitada disponibilidad de programas interdisciplinarios, las brechas tecnológicas y la necesidad de alinear las prácticas educativas con los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible (ODS). Superar estos obstáculos requiere esfuerzos sostenidos en la formación docente, inversión en infraestructura tecnológica y políticas institucionales que reconozcan y recompensen la excelencia en la enseñanza. El impacto del SoTL se evidencia en la creciente valoración de la docencia, un mayor compromiso estudiantil y cambios en políticas institucionales que priorizan la docencia en las evaluaciones académicas. Al adoptar el enfoque del SoTL y los principios de la pedagogía crítica freireana, las instituciones latinoamericanas no solo mejoran los resultados educativos, sino que además aportan valiosas perspectivas al discurso global sobre la educación superior. Este artículo enfatiza el rol esencial de la educación culturalmente sensible para transformar los procesos de enseñanza y aprendizaje, promoviendo el diálogo intercultural y favoreciendo el cambio social en toda la region.
Copyright (c) 2025 Oscar Jerez Yañez, Jorge Maldonado Mahauad, Gisela Schwartzman, Carolina Rodriguez Enríquez, Sugey Montoya Sandí, Álvaro Herrera Alcaíno, Cristina Del Mastro Vecchione, Miguel Morales-Chan, Wendy Díaz Pérez, Ivory Mogollón de Lugo , Gina Camargo De Luque, Alejandra Martínez Barrientos, Fábio José Garcia dos Reis https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Exploring Immediate and Sustained Changes in Teaching Practices Following Midterm Student Feedback
Midterm student feedback is increasingly considered to have greater potential for improvement in post-secondary teaching than end-of-term course evaluations. While many benefits have been established, the process for gathering midterm feedback has been studied exclusively with the aim of characterizing short-term effects. At McMaster University, in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, midterm student feedback is called a “course refinement.” As the final part of a multiphase study investigating instructors’ perceptions of the course refinement process and its impact, this paper examines whether changes made by instructors following the course refinement process are sustained beyond the term. The study involved two phases of data collection: initially, a semi-structured in-person interview or survey completed one to three months following the conclusion of an instructor’s refined course, followed by an additional interview one year after the instructor’s course refinement. Changes to instructors’ teaching practices were evident in both phases. Furthermore, a thorough examination of sustained change revealed two predominant themes: the relationship between sustained change and instructors’ beliefs about teaching, and the impact of sustained change on various levels of higher education. The latter theme is explored via an ecological systems framework, which revealed much broader implications than we ever imagined. Course refinements do, indeed, lead to lasting changes that go beyond the boundaries of a course and have effects departmentally, institutionally, and inter-institutionally—and conceivably even influence post-secondary society and culture more widely.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rebecca L. Taylor, Kris Knorr, Michelle Ogrodnik, Peter Sinclair https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Is the Course Working? An Account of Our Development of an Instrument to Measure the Science Attitudes and Skills of Undergraduate Students Outside of Science Disciplines
After a redesign of our school year structure, our science team developed an introduction to science course focused on teaching science to non-science majors early in their post-secondary studies. The goal of this course was not to prepare students for further pursuit of science degrees; instead, we wanted to equip them with the skills and attitudes necessary to understand the scientific world in which we live. Consequently, we wondered whether these skills and attitudes were being met throughout the course; was the course working? When searching the literature, we did not identify any instrument that simultaneously and concisely measured general science skills and attitudes. Given this gap and based on our desire to measure science skills and attitudes for non-science majors at our campus, this research team developed Augustana Interdisciplinary Scientific Literacy Evaluation (AISLE) in order to provide a measurement of students’ science skills and abilities in a general science course at the post-secondary level. However, as we would come to know, this process was not as simple as might seem. The purpose of this paper is to provide an account of the development and validation of the AISLE for those who wish to use the instrument or for others in the SoTL community looking to develop similar tools. We also offer an account of using the AISLE in our course to measure students’ science skill and attitude development. In the end, our STEM-based instructional team learned that what appeared to be straight forward assessment development, was, in fact, a far more involved and complicated process.
Copyright (c) 2025 Ellen Watson, Sheryl Gares, Brian Rempel https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Tenurable Teaching-Focused Faculty Streams and Ranks in Canadian Universities: A Review of Collective Agreements
As in several other countries, Canada’s research-focused universities have seen an expansion in recent decades of tenurable or tenure-like teaching-focused faculty (TTFF) roles. TTFF streams are not new in Canada, but they have experienced growth in number and re-definition in scope at many universities. Despite its definitive impact in university/faculty relations, the language of negotiated collective agreements (contracts) has not been considered on a national scale. This study examined collective agreements in place on January 1, 2023, at 15 medical/doctoral and 15 comprehensive universities in Canada to determine whether they had TTFF positions. We investigated how these positions compared across institution types based on key features including definitions, duties, and workloads, promotion and tenure criteria, professional mobility and complement limits, sabbatical leave, and salary provisions. Findings indicate that TTFF streams were present in eight of the medical/doctoral universities and seven of the comprehensive universities. We conclude that tenurable or tenure-like teaching streams are no longer anomalous in Canada, and that while many universities construct these positions as teaching-only, TTFF contract language increasingly encompasses scholarly and curricular work outside the classroom with an identifiable impact on teaching and learning beyond one’s own students.
Copyright (c) 2025 Tiffany Potter, Diane Symbaluk, Brad Jackson, David M. Andrews https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Enhancing Engagement in a Learning Management System through a Raffle Ticket System
Learning management systems (LMS) are essential components of courses, yet student engagement on these platforms remains a significant challenge. Traditionally, grades have been used to incentivize student engagement, but this approach comes with drawbacks. In this paper, we explored an alternative form of incentivization, gamification, that has gained traction in higher education. We implemented a gamified raffle ticket system aimed at enhancing asynchronous engagement with our LMS, Microsoft Teams, in a third-year undergraduate elective health sciences course during the fall 2023 semester. We defined engagement as students’ voluntary participation and interaction in LMS-related activities. Students earned raffle tickets for various participatory activities using the LMS—including making a post, replying to a thread, and reacting to posts—which were later entered into a drawing for prizes. Student participation in these activities was tallied and used as quantitative data of engagement. We recorded engagement metrics for three different semesters of the same course: fall 2023 in which the raffle ticket system was implemented; and fall 2021 and fall 2022 before the implementation of the raffle ticket system. Results indicated a substantial increase in engagement metrics following the raffle ticket system’s introduction. Our findings suggest that the gamified raffle ticket system effectively incentivized student engagement, fostering a more interactive and supportive online learning community in the LMS. Thus, this paper offers a framework for educators who are looking to adopt a gamification strategy into their own courses to engage students to interact in an LMS.
Copyright (c) 2025 Shahzeb Khan, Varshaa Srivel, Michael Wong https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Scaffolding the Flipped Classroom to Enhance Students’ Learning Process
After multiple trials to determine the most effective flipped classroom design for our bachelor course, Philosophy of Science, we established a setup with compulsory flipped workgroups at the core, while online knowledge videos and optional joint classes offer preparatory support. This article documents our attempts to improve scaffolding offered in the optional joint classes by structuring them according to the Question Driven Discovery model. Regarding the effectiveness of the offered scaffolding, the findings are mixed: students did not perceive the joint classes as highly activating or yielding positive learning effects, and most preferred to prepare for flipped workgroups independently. However, substantial differences were noted in learning activities and outcomes between attendees and non-attendees, as well as in their valuation of the supportive and activating function of the joint classes. These results confirm earlier findings which show that, to capitalize on the potential activating effect of the flipped classroom during the bachelor phase, instructors need to strike the right balance between structure and flexibility. As early career students’ capacity to self-regulate is limited, we recommend future research focuses on how to design assignments and assessment in such a way that students are required to engage in scaffolding learning activities, even if they are non-compulsory.
Copyright (c) 2025 Coyan Tromp https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Transformative Potential of Inquiry: Engaging With and Navigating Complex “Worlds”
I propose a model of the scholarship of teaching and learning that builds on and at the same time extends previous work. This article revisits the idea of inquiry as a collaborative social practice enriched by critical reflection and critical self-reflection on assumptions, making a case that among the various functions of inquiry (e.g., increasing effectiveness, enhancing understanding, etc.) is an important emancipatory one, which plays out on two levels: it fosters personal development and agency, but may also lead to social change in our institutions and wider society. This is the transformative potential of inquiry. Looking forward, I make two points: First, I suggest that through inquiry into genuine problems both students and academics not only come to know more, they are also changed in fundamental ways allowing them to better navigate their increasingly complex worlds. These complex worlds include the “big world” that we all inhabit and seek to better understand through our academic endeavours (learning and inquiring through our fields of study) and the “smaller world” of teaching in higher education. Both worlds are rife with “wicked problems” inviting multiple possible meanings depending on assumed viewpoint, thereby defying straight-forward definitions, analyses, interpretations, and solutions. Second, to fully reach its emancipatory potential, inquiry into these two complex worlds must be grounded in a “situational ethos” that recognizes the needs and challenges of the larger world.
Copyright (c) 2025 Carolin Kreber https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Graduate Student Completion and Comprehension of Assigned Readings: A SoTL Project
This project examined the effectiveness of two reading strategies for graduate speech-language pathology students: peer-guided questioning using social annotation and individual reading with general instructor guidance. Thirty-six students were randomly assigned to one of the strategies, alternating for four assignments. Comprehension quizzes and self-reported reading completion were assessed. Additionally, student attitudes toward assigned readings were explored pre- and post-project, along with barriers and facilitators to reading comprehension. Results showed no significant difference between the strategies in improving comprehension or the amount of reading completed. Reported barriers to reading included time constraints and complex texts, while suggested facilitators involved pre-reading preparation and vocabulary instruction. Although neither strategy proved superior, the study highlights potential instructor-led approaches to enhance student engagement and comprehension with assigned readings, such as addressing barriers and implementing facilitators. Reflection on unexamined assumptions for this project was presented.
Copyright (c) 2025 Patrick R. Walden, Brittany Khan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Context Matters: Enhancing SoTL by Exploring Interpersonal Relationship Building in Higher Education
This paper contributes to SoTL by critically examining the literature on the nature of interpersonal relationships across global higher education settings through narrative inquiry, focusing on both online and in-person learning. Drawing on previous literature (to show patterns of inquiry) and fictional student cases (to give concrete details and examples), this paper examines how educators’ relationships with students shape learning outcomes and experiences and looks at the intricate role of trust in fostering interpersonal relationships within educational settings. The impact of trust is examined across various dimensions—from student-teacher dynamics to peer interactions and institutional structures. Key themes of deliberate interaction, clear communication, and activities for belonging emerge as crucial for fostering supportive learning environments. The analysis underscores the significance of empathetic communication and culturally responsive pedagogies in enhancing student engagement and well-being. Trust, foundational to all those themes, is analyzed through lenses of honesty and benevolence, two essential perspectives for establishing reliable educational environments for students from a variety of societal and educational backgrounds. Through the fictionalized cases, the authors investigate how trust, as cultivated through reflective practices such as the 5Rs framework (Bain et al. 2002), enhances student engagement and inclusivity. By integrating personal reflections and scholarly literature from SoTL, this paper advocates for pedagogical practices that prioritize inclusive, relational approaches in education across diverse contexts.
Copyright (c) 2025 Nira Rahman, Hannah Cobb, Lindsay Giddings, Mary Helen Truglia , Sara Dolan, Surita Jhangiani, Kevin O'Connor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Incorporating Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Intersectionality in First-Year Engineering: An Exploration of Students’ Application to Teamwork
Teamwork skills are a vital learning outcome in higher education, yet negative interpersonal interactions within teams can diminish students’ sense of belonging and inclusion. To address this challenge, the introduction of equity, diversity, inclusion, and intersectionality (EDI&I) topics into course curriculums has been proposed. This study examines how integrating these concepts into a first-year engineering design course impacts students’ sense of inclusion and their ability to apply EDI&I principles to teamwork. Specifically, our research questions were: 1) To what extent did students experience a sense of belonging and uniqueness (inclusion) on their teams? 2) To what factors do students attribute their sense of belonging and uniqueness on their teams? And 3) How do students describe their design team experiences in relation to their ability to apply EDI&I? Data was collected through questionnaires from and interviews with forty-six participants using a qualitative empirical approach. Findings were that most students reported a strong sense of belonging and uniqueness within their teams, contributing to an overall feeling of inclusion. However, a small minority reported difficulties in applying EDI&I concepts to their teamwork. The discussion explores these difficulties and includes teaching strategies aimed at enhancing support for inclusive student teaming processes.
Copyright (c) 2025 Janice Miller-Young, Danielle Gardiner Milln, Eklovepreet Singh https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Interdisciplinary Teaching About Refugee and Migrant Policy and Experiences Using Simulation and Story
This research assesses how interdisciplinary pedagogical interventions can prepare students to tackle complex problems, such as the refugee and migrant crisis. The co-authors created a six-week interdisciplinary module, introducing students to refugee and migrant rights, experiences, and challenges from two disciplinary pedagogical and substantive perspectives: international relations and literature. Students examined the refugee and migrant crisis from a macro level, engaging in a Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) simulation where they collaborated to create border policies. They then examined the issue from an individual level via refugee narratives, including participation in Narrative 4 story exchanges. Finally, they revised their policies according to what they learned. The impact of these pedagogical interventions was assessed through qualitative and quantitative analysis of student surveys, written products, and co-instructor observations. This data reveals the effectiveness of an interdisciplinary approach with regards to increased empathy, problem-solving strategies, and collaboration when teaching about complex issues like the refugee and migrant crisis. Using simulation and narrative teaching pedagogies to teach about migration and refugee issues and rights allows students the space to express their ideas, learn and understand the complexities of the issues, develop empathy, and challenge their own worldviews. Photo credit: A. Espriella, 2021
Copyright (c) 2025 Emily Wierszewski, Roni Kay O'Dell https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Autonomy-Supportive Teacher Behaviours and Their Impact on Student Attendance at University Level
Previous research on the motivation types located along a self-determination continuum revealed that the autonomy in students’ motivation has a positive impact on getting favourable results and underlined the importance of autonomy-supportive environments. Given that teacher behaviour is addressed as one of the forms of autonomy-supportive environments, the present study aimed to understand the nature of teacher behaviours in a mass course where the students explained the teacher as the most important motivational drive for their attendance in lectures. To this end, 101 first-year students studying at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences participated in semi-structured interviews. The content analysis of qualitative data showed that the students were motivated by the teachers’ structured guidance, promotion of active participation, and acknowledgement of their ideas. Most importantly, their responses showed that lively teaching performance with use of humour and changing the tone of voice were the most important factors influencing their attendance behaviour. The results indicated that attendance was autonomously motivated by not only teachers’ informative, interactive, and caring behaviours but also teaching performance with some desired characteristics for university level students.
Copyright (c) 2025 Gizem Mutlu Gülbak, Okan Gülbak https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Establishing and Sustaining SoTL: The Role of Brokering and Strategic Leadership
Although the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) has continued to evolve as a field, building and sustaining SoTL within educational institutions remains challenging. Through interviews with 18 SoTL scholars, we sought to examine the question, “How do individuals and institutions sustain SoTL?” Our findings highlighted the important roles of brokering and strategic leadership. Using the landscape of practice as our theoretical framework, we identified the many ways that SoTL scholars influence and are influenced by these roles. SoTL practices are undeniably vulnerable to fluctuating institutional agendas and discourses, changes in leadership, funding opportunities, formal rewards, and overt recognition of SoTL, including scholars’ positions and titles. We found institutional actions may be critical in launching SoTL, supporting it at different times, or establishing academic positions for SoTL scholars who are able to promote the field. However, institutional support waxed and waned across institutions, with a few exceptions, which meant that the SoTL brokers working across the landscape of practice sustained SoTL over time through their strategic leadership. Despite varying contexts, our participants were in it for the long haul, brokering their connections to withstand the vagaries of institutional support. Thus, building SoTL is a long-term effort that requires resilience and a certain degree of institutional support, but more importantly, sustained, bottom-up support for faculty development, collaboration, and commitment across the landscape of practice.
Copyright (c) 2025 Barbara Kensington-Miller, Andrea S. Webb, Geneviève Maheux-Pelletier, Heather Lewis, Ann M. Gansemer-Topf https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Learning Is [Like] an Act of Writing: The Writerly Turn in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education
Scholarly inquiry into teaching and learning in higher education has long been undertaken through a wide array of theoretical and methodological approaches. This article offers a novel theoretical framework for reconceptualizing and analyzing teaching and learning processes as textual acts. Drawing on Roland Barthes’s concept of the writerly text, this framework enables us to rethink how students engage with course content through positioning learning as an act of meaning making. It also offers insights into how instructors can prompt more meaningful interaction and engagement. For Barthes, writerly texts are texts where the act of reading is an act of re-writing, where the reader is an active participant in producing the text’s meaning. This article applies this writerly conceptual lens to the teaching and learning process in a university STEM course, exploring how positioning the teacher as the author, the course as the text, and the student as the reader might create a space where the student is not just the audience (Barthes 1974, 4) of a course’s content, but also a co-creator.
Copyright (c) 2025 Robert Gray https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Students’ Perceptions of Self and Peers Predict Self-Reports of Cheating
Academic dishonesty and how to address it are common concerns across higher education disciplines, but engineering students admit to higher rates of academic dishonesty than other students. However, first-year students may be particularly receptive to prevention efforts. Considering self-perception, social norming, and behavioral choice theories, we hypothesized that 1.) Students who perceived themself as ethical and more knowledgeable of the consequences for misconduct would be less likely to self-report cheating and 2.) Students who perceived cheating and plagiarism to be common would be more likely to self-report cheating. For this study, freshmen engineering students (N=703) reported their self-perception, perception of cheating and plagiarism among peers, their knowledge of the consequences for cheating, and if they had cheated. A backward elimination logistic regression model determined significant predictors of having cheated. Participants were more likely to report their cheating when they perceived cheating as common. There were significant interactions between self-ethics and perceived plagiarism, and between knowledge of consequences and perceived plagiarism interactions. Results are discussed within the context of social norming and future efforts to reduce misconduct.
Copyright (c) 2025 Amber M. Henslee, Luke Settles, Sara E. Johnson, Gayla R. Olbricht https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
A Pilot Study for Building Student Metacognitive Skills and Self-Perception in a Food Microbiology Lecture Course
Metacognition, or the monitoring of one’s own learning, is an underutilized tool in STEM education. Previous research suggests instructional strategies that attempt to improve student metacognitive skills could increase student resilience and retention in STEM classes. This pilot initiative aimed to improve student metacognitive skills and self-perception. To do so, metacognitive-based instructional strategies were added to the curriculum of a food microbiology lecture course. These instructional strategies encouraged students to build their metacognitive skills within a supportive classroom community. Student metacognitive skills, self-perception, and learning strategies were assessed throughout the semester. By the end of the semester, over a third of students reported using at least three higher-order learning strategies. Additionally, there were some significant changes in students’ sense of belonging and self-efficacy, with an overall positive improvement compared to their previous science lectures. This study found that metacognitive-based instructional strategies can be an important tool for improving students’ experiences in a food microbiology class.
Copyright (c) 2025 Sarah E. Daly, Patrick A. Gibney, Abigail B. Snyder https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Flipping EFL Reading Comprehension Classes: Students’ Learning Achievement and Perceptions
Recent English as a foreign language (EFL) research has focused on flipped learning as one of the innovative teaching methods for enhancing language learning quality. Given this recent attention, this study examines the impact of the flipped classroom method on EFL students’ reading comprehension. With the use of quasi-experimental mixed method design, a total of 211 EFL students from a Vietnamese university were randomly divided into groups engaged in flipped learning (n = 111) and traditional learning (n = 100). A variety of data sources were used to triangulate the findings. These included a reading comprehension diagnostic test, pre- and post-reading comprehension tests, EFL flipped questionnaire, an institutional feedback survey, and focus group discussions. The post-reading comprehension test results showed that student learning with the flipped classroom method significantly outperformed their counterparts in the traditional group. The students also had positive perceptions of the flipped classroom, increasing their learning motivation, learning autonomy, learning engagement, satisfaction, and effectiveness.
Copyright (c) 2025 Quyen Tran, Elena Verezub, Rosemary Fisher https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Toward a Humanist and Agentic Paradigm of Inclusive Teaching—Lessons from the United States Civil Rights Era for College Pedagogy
Inclusive teaching is a potentially transformative mindset and approach to reimagining education. To realize its full potential, we must be willing to redefine what it means to teach. In this essay, I draw on the lessons learned during the civil rights work of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC) to make the case for a new paradigm for teaching college classrooms. SNCC identified three key principles that guided their work: — 1) families and organizing, 2) grassroots leadership, and 3) casting your bucket where you are. The late Robert (Bob) Moses, recalls these very principles in his post SNCC years when he founded the Algebra Project across the country. Similarly, I consider here how these principles, and their focus on centering relationships and trust, can be transformative for teaching in higher education.
Copyright (c) 2025 Bryan M. Dewsbury https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Mastery-Based Testing in Linear Algebra: An Entry Point to Alternative Grading
An increasing number of university faculty have become interested in alternative grading systems in recent years. While there is a growing body of research on such grading systems, implementation can be a challenge for instructors. Mastery-based testing is a grading system in which students learn from feedback and have multiple attempts to demonstrate proficiency in a written exam setting without penalty. Student exam scores are determined by the number of course learning outcomes successfully completed by the end of the course. Given that all other aspects of the course are left in place, this model can serve as a relatively simple entry point into alternative grading. We implemented mastery-based testing in three sections of a 16-week high-enrollment university linear algebra course and gathered data on student perceptions of and performance in this revised course. In this paper, we report on students’ descriptions of the benefits and drawbacks of this system, their beliefs about final grades in this course compared to other courses, and their self-reported study habits.
Copyright (c) 2025 Rebecca Swanson, Aram Bingham, Megan Sanders, Carter Moulton https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Recommendations for Success in Forming and Maintaining a SoTL Community of Practice
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) communities of practice (CoP) have emerged as collaborative learning environments that unite people with a shared interest. However, forming and maintaining a successful SoTL CoP can be challenging, requiring careful planning and execution. As academics, we encounter various universal problems and challenges in our teaching and learning practices, particularly in a discipline-focused environment. Researching these challenges is the obvious path to finding answers. However, many discipline-focused academics are unsure of where to begin or how to conduct research on their teaching and learning. As novice SoTL researchers, we established a SoTL CoP in 2021. We used Participatory Action Learning and Action Research (PALAR) principles to form and function our CoP. After two years of successfully maintaining our SoTL CoP, we analysed the data gathered during our meetings. We identified four main themes: Unity in diversity, maximising collaborative potential, nurturing collaboration, and navigating success. We used these themes to compile guidelines for successfully forming and maintaining a SoTL CoP. Implementing these guidelines within a discipline-focused environment will support the development of a collaborative and supportive environment for the advancement of SoTL practices. By prioritising these guidelines, a CoP can thrive, fostering a collaborative and cohesive community where members actively participate, share their expertise, and contribute to collective growth within SoTL. Photo created using DALLE-3, 2024.
Copyright (c) 2025 Aletta M. du Plessis, Cornelia M. Schreck, Christo A. Bisschoff, Dané Coetzee, Samantha A. Kahts-Kramer, Jacobus J. Oosthuizen https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Don’t Set Goals, Set Systems: Using Decoding the Disciplines and Students as Partners to Strengthen a History Department and its Teacher Candidates
This case study presents the development of a system that integrated two strands of SoTL research—Decoding the Disciplines and Students as Partners—into a secondary history teacher preparation program. This system simultaneously refined teaching in undergraduate history courses and provided authentic learning experiences for secondary education teacher candidates. The system involved partnering a teacher preparation course with an undergraduate history course. Teacher candidates interviewed students from that history course to decode bottlenecks in their historical thinking. Teacher candidates then suggested instructional changes faculty could implement to respond to surfaced bottlenecks. This study explores how the connection between Decoding the Disciplines and Students as Partners can address the gap between university instruction and secondary teaching. It further describes how teacher candidates applied the decoding paradigm to analyze learning in undergraduate history courses and proposed curricular improvements. The study reflects on the benefits of this system for stakeholders, including teacher candidates, student researchers, history faculty, and undergraduate students taking history courses. Teacher candidates benefited from the practical experiences of decoding research, including eliciting learning cognition, assessing learner needs, and responding instructionally. Student research partners gained experience in data management and mixed-methods research while providing a valuable perspective as co-analysts. History faculty gained opportunities to have the cognition of their students systematically examined and receive recommendations for improving instruction. Finally, undergraduate students collectively benefited from improved instruction in history courses. This adaptable system could extend beyond history departments into other disciplines, especially in contexts that train secondary teachers.
Copyright (c) 2025 Jared McBrady https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Reimagining Student Success through Engagement and Soft Outcomes: Learning from a Capstone Course in a Canadian Polytechnic
This paper uses a capstone class in the bachelor of technology program at Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (Canada) as a case study for reimagining a “successful” student and promoting growth in a variety of learners. In this course, students, guided by faculty advisors, work in teams to address real-world projects solicited by individuals or organizations. Over two years, feedback was gathered through interviews and surveys with graduating students and alumni to identify opportunities for improvement and to gain deeper insight into students’ learning experiences. The authors analyze these responses through the lens of scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), particularly through literature on soft outcomes. In comparison to hard outcomes like grades or completing a degree, soft outcomes capture student advancement toward the goals of a particular course and can include interpersonal, organizational, and internal development. Ultimately, we conclude that our course promotes students’ progress toward soft outcomes through their relationships with their project sponsors, instructors, and teammates. Our findings emphasize the importance of fostering students’ social, emotional, and personal growth and suggest that the students who might be perceived as low-achieving can still advance as much on their learning journey as the ones who would be traditionally lauded as high-achieving. We align our findings with scholarship that investigates students’ emotional growth and wellbeing, which can be difficult amidst pedagogy, research, and government policy that define the value of post-secondary education primarily in terms of its ability to prepare students for the job market. This paper reframes what being a successful student means, contributes to a wider body of research on soft outcomes, and provides valuable insight for educators and researchers who are invested in students’ engagement.
Copyright (c) 2025 Clare Mulcahy, Ashique Khan https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Navigating Poster Design in the Sea of SoTL
In 2023, Teaching & Learning Inquiry (TLI) began accepting ISSOTL conference poster submissions for peer review and publication (TLI n.d.-a). ISSOTL developed peer review guidelines (TLI n.d.-b) with the goal of elevating scholarly communication in new and engaging ways. These guidelines outline basic principles of design to guide researchers in developing scholarly posters that are simple, clear, and effective for an international, interdisciplinary SoTL audience. Grounded in research and scholarly communication best practices (Chick 2025; Johnson 2014; Literat et al. 2018; Manarin 2016; Morrison 2020; Schrum et al. 2022), the TLI peer review guidelines (TLI n.d.-b) suggest that a poster must tell a complete story such that its main messages are informative on their own. Distilling scholarly research into an engaging visual narrative, however, can be challenging without design skills or visual communication experience (Gundogan et al. 2016; Schrum 2022). This poster presents basic design principles for communicating complex SoTL research in concise and visually appealing ways in order to tell your SoTL story effectively. This work aligns closely with the ISSOTL 2024 conference theme, Recognizing Impact and Reinvigorating Practice (ISSOTL 2024), and the foundational questions regarding what SoTL is and might be (Hutchings 2000). The poster encourages SoTL scholars to envision and construct new ways of communicating SoTL that they can put into practice while learning valuable, transferable skills (Oliver and Jorre de St. Jorre 2018). Getting Started One way to get started designing more effective scholarly posters is to explore posters published in TLI, such as those listed below. As you examine these posters, ask yourself key ANCHOR questions: What SoTL story (Halpern 2023) does the poster tell? What is most important for the viewer to consider and take away from the poster? How might different kinds of viewers (e.g., the viewer across the room, the viewer passing by, and the viewer who stops to read closely) engage with it? Example 1: SoTL in Human Movement Sciences: Moving Forward in South Africa. (Schreck et al. 2023). https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.11.31 Example 2: Journal Club: An Innovative Teaching Practice to Foster Peer Connection and Enhance Information Literacy Skills. (Croxen, Nelson, and McKendrick-Calder 2023). https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.11.30 Example 3: Code Switching as a Teaching and Learning Strategy: Opinions and Perceptions of University-Level Students of French as a Foreign Language (FFL) in Ghana. (Kwaffo 2023). https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.11.29 Please note: Our poster is designed to convey information to a range of viewers. The authors recommend zooming in to read all text and visiting the online resources and ANCHOR worksheet https://bit.ly/goodposters2024 for additional information.
Copyright (c) 2025 Kelly Schrum, Emma Mills, Wai Ling Fong, Nancy Chick https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Individual Differences in the Context of Active Learning
Active learning pedagogies’ benefits for academic outcomes are well-established (Prince 2004). There is, however, evidence of individual differences in outcomes (Richardson et al. 2012). The present study considers whether gender, race, and socio-economic status (SES) relate to academic self-efficacy, perceived learning, and student engagement during the intense active learning experience of Reacting to the Past (Reacting). Students from three US universities (N = 211) completed a survey after participating in a Reacting game. The survey assessed academic self-efficacy, perceived learning, and engagement and collected student-reported demographic characteristics. Female students perceived more learning, more achievement of learning outcomes, and more enjoyment than their male peers; they also reported more engagement with the game. Students from minoritized racial groups were generally more positive about their Reacting experience than White students, especially with regard to perceived learning. Students from low socioeconomic status groups reported more engagement with the game than those from higher SES status groups.
Copyright (c) 2025 Robert Bledsoe , Deborah South Richardson https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Significance of Trust in Fostering Meaningful Learning
Introduction to Special Section: Trust
Copyright (c) 2025 Jessie L. Moore, Sophie Miller, Buffie Longmire-Avital, Eric Hall, Ellery Ewell, Christina Wyatt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Building Trust Through Feedback: A Conceptual Framework for Educators
Trust is fundamental for effective student engagement with feedback in higher education. This study aimed to develop a conceptual framework delineating the specific instructor practices and learning environment conditions that facilitate trustful feedback processes. Open-ended survey responses from higher education instructors (n=147) were analysed using a qualitative methodology. Analysis revealed three key environmental conditions for building trust-based relationships: positive non-judgment; inclusion, community, and constructive interdependence; and dialogue and discussion. Three instructor feedback practices were found to promote student agency: showing empathy and sensitivity to student identities, communicating high expectations, and promoting student self-evaluation. These relationship- building conditions and agency-promoting practices operate synergistically, as represented by our framework of Building Trust Through Feedback. By continuously cultivating this interplay of environmental and relational factors, instructors can engender greater reciprocity, vulnerability, and growth during the feedback process. The proposed framework provides guidance on trust-building pedagogies that enhance student engagement and learning. Further research should explore student perspectives on practices that build trusting instructor-student relationships.
Copyright (c) 2025 Breana Bayraktar, Kiruthika Ragupathi, Katherine A. Troyer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
The Roles of Supervisor Care and Trust and Sense of Belonging in Promoting Internship Satisfaction
This study examines how relational aspects of the internship experience, namely students’ perceptions of a supervisor’s care and trust and students’ sense of belonging, factor into students’ satisfaction with their internship experience. We found that relational aspects impacted internship satisfaction. Although students’ perceptions of a supervisor’s care and trust were not a significant predictor of satisfaction, their sense of belonging was significant. Further analysis pointed to opportunities to use career related skills and gain confidence to pursue future job opportunities as significant in building students’ sense of belonging.
Copyright (c) 2025 Melinda K. Adams, Jody E. Jessup-Anger https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
What is the Role of Trust in Peer Support Schemes for Underrepresented Students?
The purpose of this study was to explore how peer support schemes can be used to facilitate meaningful relationships and a sense of belonging for underrepresented students. Using three case studies, the study explored and compared peer support leaders’ narratives about their experiences at three universities: one in the United Kingdom (UK), one in the United States (USA), and the other in Singapore. One-to-one interviews and focus groups were completed with 25 students (15 in the UK, four in the USA, and six in Singapore) to explore their perceptions and experiences of being a peer support lead within their institution. These three case studies (one at each institution) explore the multifaceted concept of belonging in order to identify the relative influences of social connection, shared culture/experiences and interpersonal trust. The results demonstrated that the students were aware of the challenges faced by underrepresented students and how peer support schemes can facilitate belonging. Whilst the three settings are diverse, the findings demonstrate that supporting learning transitions and the navigation of liminal spaces through peer support can encourage trust, belonging, and student success. We propose a conceptual model for considering how social connection, shared culture/experiences, and interpersonal trust can contribute to the central goal of belonging. This conceptual model can be used as a resource to support consideration of peer support schemes for underrepresented students that can be developed to support student belonging.
Copyright (c) 2025 Claire Hamshire, Mimi Benjamin, Alan Soong Swee Kit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0