Optimising your teaching practice with the Utrecht Roadmap for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
The Utrecht Roadmap for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (UR-SoTL) is a practical step-by-step plan that helps lecturers to systematically research their own teaching practices when they want to optimise them and develop themselves by gaining knowledge about their students' learning. Are you one of those lecturers? Then be sure to read on.
In eight steps, you will be stimulated to think critically about the way you organise your teaching and what effect this has on your students' learning. Relevant information, tips and targeted questions will help you to transform your ideas into a practice-oriented research/evaluation in a structured way.
Substantiate your research question
One lecturer who has experience with the Roadmap is Rahul Pandit. He was coached by educational advisor Lindy Wijsman and finds it a useful tool: "The practical tips for each step are helpful for lecturers who have no/little experience with educational research. A lot of attention is paid to analysing learning activities, which works well. Tips and questions are given to help you clarify the objective of your SoTL project, i.e. why you want to tackle a particular part of your teaching and what your specific intervention would be. This ensures that your research question is well defined. A clear research question makes it easier to set up and conduct the research. It also makes the results you obtain usable."
Tips and questions are given to help you clarify the objective of your SoTL project
He therefore recommends the Roadmap to other teachers: "The first time, I would recommend going through the step-by-step plan under the guidance of an educational consultant. In addition, the Roadmap is not only applicable to SoTL projects, but you can also use it to tackle other educational innovations."
The Roadmap was developed by educational consultants at Utrecht University and is based on their practical experience, knowledge of educational theories and practice-based research according to the principles of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). Click here for the Roadmap.
Part of a wider initiative
The UR-SoTL is part of a broader initiative to stimulate Educational Scholarship within Utrecht University. At the moment, the Centre for Academic Teaching (CAT) offers the following possibilities for support in SoTL projects:
- A Special Interest Group (SIG) that organises a meeting for and by all SoTL interested parties at the UU four times a year (register)
- An annual SoTL conference with guest speakers, workshops, and posters of SoTL projects at the UU and beyond
- Educational advice from SoTL experts Femke Kirschner and Lindy Wijsman (O&T)
- An innovation fund for SoTL grants from the CAT
- Support in writing a Comenius scholarship
Have you had an idea to improve your education? Are you thinking about joining in with new educational trends? Or do you want to professionalise as a lecturer by going into depth about the learning process of your students? The experts will help you to use the Roadmap and together you can turn your idea into a great project.