Research Coordinator Blog

  With things returning to pre-pandemic normalcy more and more, you may have taken some time to think about PD again. Although you may find an amazing conference in a location you’d love to visit, location should not be something you look for when making your initial list (though you may need to eliminate some amazing conferences if they’re too far away and will be too expensive to attend). So, what should you be looking for? I have some suggestions!   First, find some conferences that might be relevant to your professional development goals or teaching practice. Search for terms like “conference” and whatever your interests are (e.g., “teaching and learning”) and location (e.g., “Ontario” or “Canada”).   That should bring up at least a few conferences for you to consider. Or, search for specific conferences you have previously attended (and found valuable).   Then, determine if you’re planning to present something at the conference (e.g., sharing a teaching te...

  Is it important to disseminate SoTL findings? Absolutely! Like any other area of research, we need to share the outcome of our research for a number of reasons. Here are 5 of them: 1) The first reason is so that others can learn what is happening in the classroom. Research can have one of many goals which include describing a phenomenon (though we typically think of research as manipulating something or conducting a true experiment). As such, it’s important to document what is occurring in the classroom and with our students. Other researchers can then use that information to inform their own studies and build on what we’ve published. 2) Publishing our work is also important because we can gain a more interdisciplinary understanding of phenomenon rather than remaining siloed in our research and knowledge. This can can help us to can get a better idea of underlying mechanisms which might cause whatever is being studied (why did a particular result happen in this classroom but not ...