Each year, colleagues from higher education institutions across the world come together for the ISSOTL conference, which is one of the world’s leading international conferences for academics to interact and discuss current issues relating to tertiary education. This year’s conference was held in Atlanta, Georgia (USA), with the theme SoTL Without Borders. You can read about our previous coverage here.
UNSW had a presence at this year’s conference through sponsorship and attendance by EF academics. The conference featured presentations from a diverse range of institutions, including ours. Presentations ranged across
- individual classroom activities (e.g. Students Helping Students Provide Valuable Feedback on Course Evaluations by Adriana Signorini and Mariana Abuan from University of California MERCED),
- institution-wide initiatives (e.g. We’re Better Together: Fostering SOTL Through Communities of Practice by Catherine Snelling and Hayley McGrice from University of Adelaide), and
- cross-institutional collaborations (Enhancing SoTL Impact and Advancing Culture Change Through University Alliances by Andrea Follmer Greenhoot from the University of Kansas, Klodiana Kolomitro from Queen's University, George Rehrey from Indiana University, Lorne Whitehead from University of British Columbia, and Brian Frank).
One of the key highlights was the pre-conference workshop What Works, Why, Where and How: Global Lessons in Influencing SoTL Culture and Leading Change in Institutions - by Mills Kelly from George Mason University, Lee Koi Cheng, Wu Siew Mei and Chng Huang Hoon from National University of Singapore - which was thought-provoking and has led directly to a collaboration around EF roles with National University Singapore in the near future.
Some EFs also participated in the pre-conference writing groups, which provided a supportive environment in which to develop individual SoTL expertise and prepare cross-institutional projects for publication.
The EF team used this opportunity to develop our network and further the conversation around EF roles with other Australian universities – as often happens, we travelled a long way to catch up with our neighbours!
ISSOTL 2019 was a wonderful forum to engage in global ways of thinking about teaching and learning. Scholarly, collegial and innovative – it embodied many of the qualities that we value in our EF community at UNSW.
Our participation provided an opportunity to bring these insights to education at UNSW, reaffirmed that UNSW’s commitment to educational excellence is in step with tertiary education institutions around the world, and supported our endeavours to position UNSW as a leading voice in the education conversation across Australia.