You, too, can publish teaching-related papers, because SOTL is like carrots!

Are you interested in getting started with SOTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning), but unsure where to start? Maybe you are a teaching-focused or a ‘traditional’ academic looking to publish teaching-related papers, but uncertain what approach or methodology to take?

The good news is that you can probably start with your familiar research methods.

Here’s why SOTL is like carrots

SOTL (and Educational Research in general) is almost as versatile as carrots – you can eat them raw/steamed/stir-fried, etc, and SOTL methodology ranges from quantitative to qualitative and everything in between. I am confident that you can certainly do SOTL. It’s very inclusive.

Below is a recording of a short-ish (15 minute) overview of SOTL methodologies and approaches that I did for the Teaching and Leadership Community of Practice. This group meets monthly and we talk about all things learning and teaching, such as available opportunities and projects, MQ tools, good teaching practice, etc. If you are interested in joining, please sign up here.

If watching a video is not your thing, no worries! Here are the key points.

1. SOTL methodologies are highly versatile, ranging from highly quantitative to highly qualitative and anything in between. If you have ever done any quantitative, qualitative or mixed-method research, you can do SOTL.
   

2. There are many areas you can research in SOTL. You can describe things as they are, look for associations and statistically significant relationships or report on an intervention.

Image credits: Freepik