International Collaborative Writing Groups: The ICWG-Academic Track

ICWG-Academic cohorts focus on academic writing for the SoTL community to produce scholarly articles that are submitted to ISSOTL’s peer-reviewed journal, Teaching & Learning Inquiry.

Chronology of the First Three Cohorts

Cohort 1
April 2012Co-Leaders Mick Healey, Beth Marquis, and Susan Vajoczki formed the first cohort of 9 groups (69 people from 13 countries).
October 2012After working together at a distance since April, the cohort gathered in Hamilton, Ontario (Canada) for a two-day workshop prior to the ISSOTL12 conference.
September 2013Eight articles were featured in a special issue of Teaching & Learning Inquiry. The cohort Co-Leaders/guest editors also wrote an introduction that outlines the origins of ISSOTL’s ICWG Initiative, as well as its specific processes and outcomes.
Cohort 2
Early 2015Co-Leaders Kelly Matthews and Mick Healey formed 8 groups (59 participants from 11 countries).
October 2015After working together since early in the year, the cohort gathered in Melbourne, Australia for a 2.5-day workshop prior to the ISSOTL15 conference.
March 2017Six articles were featured in a special section of Teaching & Learning Inquiry. The cohort Co-Leaders/guest editors’ introduction features a comparison with the first cohort and an early analysis of participants’ individual reflections from throughout the ICWG year.
Cohort 3
March 2019Co-Leaders Aysha Divan, Phillip Motley, and Lauren Scharff formed 9 groups (51 people from __ countries).
October 2019After working together at a distance since March, the cohort gathered in Atlanta, Georgia (US) for a 2.5-day workshop prior to the ISSOTL19 conference.
March 2021Nine articles were featured in a special section of Teaching & Learning Inquiry. The cohort Co-Leaders/guest editors’ foreword features the rationale for decreasing the group size from an average of 8 to 6 and photos from the in-person event.

View the collection of video interviews with leaders, facilitators, and participants in these three cohorts of ICWGs in “ICWG Impact: More than Just a Writing Project.”

ICWGs-Academic Publications

Mick Healey, Beth Marquis, and Susan Vajoczki (the creators of the ICWG Initiative) have noted that the articles produced by the groups are “conceptualisations based on a review of the relevant literature” and are intended to provide “a novel way of thinking about and cultivating literature in the field” (2013, p. 4, 6). Below are the articles published by the first three cohorts.

First Cohort: Teaching & Learning Inquiry, issue 1.2 (September 2013)
Second Cohort: Teaching & Learning Inquiry, issue 5.1 (March 2017)
Third Cohort: Teaching & Learning Inquiry, issue 9.1 (March 2021)