Grand Challenges for SoTL Interest Group

Mission: This interest group will coordinate, support, and contribute to ISSOTL’s efforts to address the five Grand Challenges of SoTL through research, communication and showcasing, and collaborations within and beyond ISSOTL membership.

Vision: As the hub for the Grand Challenges for SoTL, this Interest Group will coordinate efforts to form robust collaborations, generate meaningful insights related to the five Grand Challenges for SoTL, and grow the awareness and perceived value of SoTL as a driver for enhancing teaching and learning across global educational systems. 

History: ISSOTL members worked since 2018 with iterative input and feedback from people around the world to identify SoTL’s Grand Challenges.  Grand challenges are complex, global problems that have no simple solution across all contexts and that require inputs from diverse areas of expertise to provide solutions for given contexts at specific points in time. They are worth investigating because, although specific to a local environment, solutions can be adapted for other contexts.  The results of the Grand Challenges for SoTL project were shared publicly in November 2023 on the ISSOTL website and at the annual conference in Utrecht. 

Launched in December 2023, ISSOTL’s Grand Challenges for SoTL Interest Group provides a way for ISSOTL members to get involved with the overarching project and/or any of its five Grand Challenges.

Co-Chairs: Lauren Scharff (laurenscharff@gmail.com) and Jen Friberg (jfribe@ilstu.edu)

What are the Five Grand Challenges for SoTL?

SoTL practitioners study postsecondary teaching and learning to better understand and improve…

• how to develop critical and creative thinkers.
• how to encourage students to be engaged inlearning
• the complex processes of learning.
• how identities affect both teaching and learning.
• the practice, use, and growth of SoTL.

Learn more about the Grand Challenges for SoTL — the overarching project and each GC — here.