Emerging SoTL Scholar Award

The Center for Teaching and Learning would like to recognize emerging scholars who have submitted proposals to the College of Education’s Innovation in Teaching Conference with promising ideas for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) studies. 

Purpose

The Center for Teaching and Learning would like to recognize emerging SoTL scholars who have submitted proposals to the College of Education’s Innovation in Teaching Conference. Strong contenders for this award will include:

• A compelling problem of teaching and learning – one that matters for student learning and has clear implications for instructor ability to teach students (broadly or in a specific class) effectively:
• An innovative* approach to studying, thinking about or addressing this problem.

*Innovation can take many forms, but here are a few examples to get you going. These are examples, not an exhaustive list, culled from past award seasons and trends in SoTL research:

• Students as co-researchers: Involving undergraduate students in investigating and solving problems of teaching and learning.
• “What is happening?” studies: Proposals that seek to delve deeper into a problem of teaching and learning to better describe and understand it. These SoTL studies may uncover or challenge assumptions teachers may make about their students and/or how they think. Read more about them here. 
• Leveraging the technology you have: Rather than adopting completely new technologies, finding ways to better utilize the technology we have (for example, your learning management system).

Above all, the award review team will be searching for clearly articulated problems and an idea to address or study that problem. Proposals do NOT have to be already developed into SoTL studies: this award recognizes emergent scholars and supports them to develop towards self-directed goals. Finalists will be asked to submit a one-page description of their experience with scholarly teaching, if any, their goals over the next year, and the name of someone who could serve as a mentor at their home institution.  

Award description

Award winners will be recognized publicly at the end of the Innovation in Teaching Conference on October 19th, 2018. Following the conference, winners will meet regularly with the Assistant Director for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Colleen Kuusinen, as a group over the fall and spring semesters, 2018-2019, and with mentors at their home institutions. The goal of the consultations will be to provide assistance, in whatever form needed, to advance the study with the ultimate goal of publication in a SoTL or discipline-based education research journal or presentation at a national conference. Award winners will receive a free registration to the Innovation in Teaching Conference in the year following their selection as a candidate, will be a guest writer for the SoTL newsletter, and will work towards giving a featured talk at UGA on their SoTL research. 

Eligibility

Any proposal submitted to the conference, whether by faculty, student, staff, or postdoctoral researcher. You must opt-in to be considered for this award when submitting a proposal online. 

Selection process

Up to 2 proposals will be chosen for this award. Abstracts will be blind reviewed by a team of CTL and USG academic developers, and finalists will be notified and emailed for additional information regarding their proposal. Schedule permitting, a member of the review team will attend the poster or presentation session of the applicant to announce them as a finalist.

Follow the links on the left to learn about past Emerging SoTL Scholar Award winners.