Research-Informed Teaching Practices (SoTL)

How to Practice Research-Informed Teaching

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is the practice of studying (and publishing potentially) learning and teaching methods to produce evidence-based best practices in the classroom and curriculum. Research-informed practices can help advance student learning by implementing scientifically tested methods of teaching. This can be helpful when you find yourself in a new teaching setting or trying to find exciting ways to engage student learning, or when you would like to share your knowledge with a wider teaching community.

Starting Off

What kind of teaching style or aspect of teaching do you prefer (e.g., lecturing, discussions, etc.)?
What kind of teaching style or aspect of teaching do you find unappealing or difficult to execute?

Looking at the Existing Literature

Look into research papers that have already been published on this topic. Recommended resources include the International Journal of Academic Development where you can see the recent developments of teaching.
Look into different teaching and learning websites to find literature including the Hilary Ballon Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning or Center for Teaching Innovation-Cornell University
Look into different social media accounts/webpages (e.g., Twitter, LinkedIn, etc) of institutions including our own Hilary Ballon Center Twitter Account or others such as Yale Poorvu Center to be immediately notified of recent development.

After Examining Existing Literature

Once you read through research papers, implementing the recommended findings can be difficult. You can fill in the table below (Figure 1) right after reading an article or while implementing new learnt tricks to give you some structure.
Apart from trying research informed teaching methods and observing the changes, you can also ask students for feedback on the changes you have made. If there are any improvements needed you can implement it immediately.

Research-Informed Teaching Methods Evaluation Table

Question	Answer
Name of the method you are willing to implement in the class? (e.g., Peer Feedback)
What is this method?
Why do you want to implement it?
How are you going to implement it?
Progress so far in class?

For a video version of these steps checkout Dr Claire Dembry - Using research in your classroom what, where, how? An EXPO session.