SIG Events

When SoTL Is Not Yet Recognised: How Can We Seed and Cultivate It in Business Schools?

📅 5th November 2026

⏲️ 12:00–1:15 PM UK time (1:00-2:15 PM CET)

➡️ Online (Teams)

How can the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) take root in business schools where academic development is still emerging and teaching-related scholarship is not yet fully recognised?

Building on the ideas explored in If SoTL is Not Recognised: Strategies for Creating Opportunities, published in Routes to Change: Strategic Leadership in SoTL, this interactive webinar will examine how academic development can provide fertile ground for SoTL to emerge and grow.

Drawing on the experience of Poznań University of Economics and Business, we will introduce an emerging conceptual framework of seeding, cultivating, and embedding SoTL. We will explore how reflective teaching practices, collegial conversations, communities, institutional support, and distributed leadership can gradually create the conditions for a sustainable SoTL culture.

The Eastern European business school perspective offers an opportunity to reflect on how historical, cultural, and institutional contexts shape different pathways towards SoTL.

Rather than presenting a universal model, we invite participants to share their experiences, discuss the challenges of gaining institutional recognition for SoTL, and explore strategies for nurturing scholarly inquiry into teaching and learning in their own institutions.

Join us to exchange ideas and explore how we can cultivate SoTL across European business schools!

Sign up to our mailing list to receive details.

The Power of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning for Individual and Institutional Transformation, in Business Schools and Beyond

📅 17th June 2026

⏲️ 3:00–4:15 PM (UK time)

➡️ Online (Zoom)

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is a rapidly expanding arena of inquiry in global higher education. Increasingly recognized as legitimate academic work, SoTL can reshape both individual and institutional teaching culture and impact. Building on Boyer’s (1990) framework, SoTL involves systematic, evidence-based investigations of student learning that draw on prior scholarship and yield outcomes open to peer review, critique, and broader application. At the same time, SoTL is inherently local: it is shaped by disciplinary, pedagogical, and institutional contexts and is enriched through collaborative partnerships with students (Felten, 2013).

This keynote examines SoTL’s defining dimensions and transformative potential while addressing conceptual and practical barriers to engagement. We consider threshold concepts and epistemological assumptions that can constrain participation (Bunnell & Bernstein, 2012) and the ways institutional value structures may align or misalign with SoTL work (Wright, Bunnell, Felten, Handstedt, & Metzger, in press). We also present examples of how SoTL is driving forward, and shaping, business education in the US context.

The keynote will be delivered collaboratively by Dr. Sarah Bunnell, Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching & Learning and Associate Professor of Psychology, and Dr. George Talbert, Assistant Professor of Marketing & Sales,  both at Elon University (USA). Drawing on perspectives from both educational development and business education, the presenters will reflect on the implementation of SoTL within and beyond the business and management disciplines, exploring how discipline-specific and discipline-agnostic contexts shape approaches to evidence-based teaching and learning.

Whether you are new to SoTL or already deeply engaged in scholarly inquiry, we warmly invite you to join us. Sign up to our mailing list to receive details!

Save the Date -- 22nd April 2026

⏲️ 1:00–2:00 PM (UK time)

➡️ Online (Zoom)

Our first meet-up will:

📢 Introduce the SIG and its vision

💡 Explore expectations for the group in small breakout discussions

🌳 Set the scene for future events, including mapping SoTL across Europe

Whether you are new to SoTL or already deeply engaged in scholarly inquiry, we warmly invite you to join us. Sign up to our mailing list to receive details!