Recommended Citation

Scharff, Lauren, Holly Capocchiano, Nancy Chick, Michelle Eady, Jen Friberg, Diana Gregory, Kara Loy, and Trent Maurer.  “Grand Challenges for SoTL in Action.” International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, November 2023. https://issotl.com/grand-challenges-for-sotl/gcs-in-action/

Grand Challenges for SoTL Activities & News

ISSOTL & Other SoTL Organizations

There are many ways organizations that support or promote teaching, learning, and/or SoTL can support and promote the Grand Challenges of SoTL.  To illustrate, as the international, multidisciplinary professional organization for the scholarship of teaching and learning, ISSOTL can play a key role in putting SoTL’s Grand Challenges into action: 

  • The annual ISSOTL conference can feature one or more of SoTL’s Grand Challenges as a thread within the larger conference theme, and/or tag presentations related to the GCs to recognize the work and allow searchability and tracking.
  • ISSOTL Vice Presidents can sponsor conversations about SoTL’s Grand Challenges in their specific contexts, addressing what each GC looks like and what’s being done in these contexts.
  • Each of ISSOTL’s four standing committees can review SoTL’s Grand Challenges as they apply to their specific charge and develop projects to promote relevant GCs. 
  • ISSOTL Interest Groups can review SoTL’s Grand Challenges as they apply within their specific areas of interest and develop projects to explore relevant GCs. 
  • Cohorts of ISSOTL’s International Collaborative Writing Groups (both the ICWG-Academic and the ICWG-Public) can focus on SoTL’s Grand Challenges.
  • Teaching & Learning Inquiry can feature a special section on submissions that address SoTL’s Grand Challenges.
  • Teaching & Learning Inquiry can also encourage the use of “SoTL’s Grand Challenges” as a keyword for relevant pieces and develop a tag/category that would capture pieces that less explicitly (but still meaningful) connect to the GCs. 
  • The ISSOTL blog can feature posts focused on SoTL’s Grand Challenges, and tag them for searchability.
  • The ISSOTL newsletter’s “Catch Up with Teaching & Learning Inquiry” section can feature an annual collection of all of the year’s TLI articles with the GCs tag.
  • The ISSOTL website can feature a special section on SoTL’s Grand Challenges that includes these explanations, ongoing news about how ISSOTL is addressing them (see above), relevant resources, and relevant social media feeds.

The above actions collectively achieve a few key goals.  First, they elevate SoTL’s Grand Challenges as a strategic priority for ISSOTL by making them and the work on them visible to both ISSOTL members and external audiences.  Next, they demonstrate this priority by intentionally and publicly recognizing (and thus valuing) relevant work.  Finally, they facilitate the data collection to track, analyze, evaluate, and showcase Society-wise efforts to address the GCs. 

SoTL Scholars

Individually or collaboratively, SoTL scholars can put SoTL’s Grand Challenges into action by doing the following:

  • develop SoTL projects that address or inform one or more of SoTL’s Grand Challenges.
  • highlight their existing work that addresses any of SoTL’s Grand Challenges by explicitly identifying that connection. These could be identified by using “SoTL’s Grand Challenges” as a keyword in journal publication and a tag for social media and blog posts, and by featuring this connection in a post on the ISSOTL blog.  
  • conduct reviews (e.g., literature reviews, scoping reviews, systematic reviews) to summarize and present the existing research and scholarship about one or more of SoTL’s Grand Challenges.
  • develop (individually, collaboratively, or crowdsourcing) annotated bibliographies on one or more of SoTL’s Grand Challenges.
  • write about one or more of SoTL’s Grand Challenges.
  • write or edit books focused on one or more of SoTL’s Grand Challenges. 
  • develop keywords and search terms related to each of SoTL’s Grand Challenges to make relevant research and resources easily findable. 
  • point to SoTL’s Grand Challenges (as relevant) when presenting their SoTL work to review committees, administrators, and other evaluative groups.
  • identify similarities or intersections between SoTL’s Grand Challenges and the Grand Challenges of other disciplines to facilitate cross-pollination of ideas, approaches, and potential solutions.
  • share SoTL’s Grand Challenges with other SoTL scholars, colleagues outside of SoTL, and relevant audiences who might be interested in the existence of this work.  

In the actions outlined above, SoTL scholars advance what is known about each of SoTL’s Grand Challenges, facilitate ongoing research and scholarship by other scholars, and advocate for SoTL that’s attentive to the GCs.

Public Outreach

Both ISSOTL as an organization and SoTL scholars as individuals can put SoTL’s Grand Challenges into action by reaching out about SoTL’s Grand Challenges or what’s currently known (and not known) about each in the following ways: 

  • develop and distribute white papers for university presidents, administrators, and policy makers.
  • develop talking points for SoTL scholars to draw on when being interviewed in major news media, podcasts, community panels, and other public venues.
  • write opinion pieces, press releases, and other materials for major news media.
  • develop infographics, short videos, social media campaigns, and other media for public audiences.
  • identify public partners to explore SoTL’s Grand Challenges more broadly.

These actions support efforts to advocate for greater understanding of the work undertaken by SoTL scholars to effect meaningful change in higher education and beyond.   

The ultimate aim of all of the actions described above is to help educators better understand and improve the complex, wicked challenges in postsecondary teaching and learning today. 

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References

Scharff, Lauren, and Claire Hamshire. 2022. “Determining SoTL’s Grand Challenges: Advocating for a Broader Endeavor for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” In Going Public Reconsidered: Engaging with the World Beyond Academe Through the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, edited by Nancy L. Chick and Jennifer C. Friberg, 62-75. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.

Scharff, Lauren, Holly Capocchiano, Michelle Eady, Jennifer Friberg, Diana Gregory, Claire Hamshire, Kara Loy, and Trent Maurer.  2022. “Grand Challenges of SoTL Phase III: Promoting A Way Forward.” Panel presented at ISSOTL Annual Conference:  At the Intersections of SoTL: Transfer and Transformation, Diversity and Inclusivity, Kelowna, Canada, November 3, 2022.

Recommended Citation

Scharff, Lauren, Holly Capocchiano, Nancy Chick, Michelle Eady, Jen Friberg, Diana Gregory, Kara Loy, and Trent Maurer.  “Grand Challenges for SoTL in Action.” International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, November 2023. https://issotl.com/grand-challenges-for-sotl/gcs-in-action/

Grand Challenges for SoTL Activities & News