On Tuesday, December 8, the 1st Annual Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Symposium will take place at McMaster, bringing together faculty, instructors, staff and students who are interested in teaching and learning as an area of scholarly inquiry.

Research in higher education is a rapidly growing field of interest, with many higher educational institutions across the country implementing or expanding their scholarship to include research on efficacies and efficiencies in educational methods.

McMaster's SoTL Symposium will have three sections: in the morning, there will be two workshops discussing quantitative and qualitative methodologies, particularly with respect to educational research.
A keynote address will also be presented by Walter Peace from McMaster's School of Geography and Earth Sciences. His talk, titled Knowing the Place for the First Time: Reflections on Thirty Years of Teaching, will examine three elements of the university experience: the institution, the students, and the teachers. Peace will discuss how these three elements have changed and evolved over the past 30 years.
In the afternoon, there will be 13 peer-reviewed research presentations by McMaster researchers. Registrants will have the opportunity to attend up to five of these presentations.

“We are thrilled to be co-hosting the inaugural SoTL Symposium,” says Sue Vajoczki, acting director of the Centre for Leadership in Learning (CLL). “We see a bright future for educational research at McMaster University, and we look forward to working with instructors to achieve distinction in the scholarship of teaching and learning.”

The symposium will provide an opportunity for the campus community to connect, exchange ideas and strengthen the research in teaching and learning at McMaster. In addition to the presentations, university teaching and learning support services and resources will be showcased. This event is also a great opportunity to network with others who may be interested in educational research initiatives.

The event is being co-hosted by the CLL and Research, Instruction and InnoVation in Educational Technologies (RIVET). The CLL and RIVET would like to thank the Office of the Vice-President of Research for supporting this event and providing the morning refreshments.

Registration is free and open to the McMaster community. To view program details and to register for the event, visit cll.mcmaster.ca/sotl/. Please ensure that you register early as seating is limited.