Proposals, Papers, and Posters

We invite proposals for papers and poster presentations that provide examples of innovations in the scholarship of teaching and learning in the liberal arts context.

Proposals should be sent as an email attachment to sotl@wabash.edu.

Former Carnegie Foundation President Lee S. Shulman has written of what he describes as "pedagogical solitude," observing that "those who engage in innovative acts of teaching rarely build upon the work of others; nor can others build upon theirs. Shulman and many others have proposed a scholarship of teaching and learning that involves "problem posing about an issue of teaching or learning, study of the problem through methods appropriate to the disciplinary epistemologies, applications of results to practice, communication of results, self-reflection, and peer review."

This conference seeks to make public those innovations in teaching and learning that have been shown to be particularly appropriate for the liberal arts context, where excellent teaching is assumed but not often shared or interrogated.

Proposals of no more than 450 words are due by November 15, 2008, and should be submitted as PDF or Microsoft Word documents. These should include

    • the author’s name, affiliation and email address
    • title of the paper
    • statements of the paper’s goals, methodology, significance and results

Proposals should connect a particular innovation to the existing literature on teaching and learning and provide an assessment of the outcomes of the innovation for student learning. We also encourage projects that look at the effects on student learning of larger institutional structures like departments and programs, both curricular and co-curricular.

Proposals may be for a paper or poster. We anticipate that all panels will be approximately 80 minutes in length and that each will have three presenters. Individuals submitting a paper should plan on about 20 minutes for its presentation, thus allowing about 20 minutes for questions and discussion. We strongly encourage all presenters not to read their papers.

The conference organizers reserve the right to balance the program by inviting some individuals proposing papers to present their work as posters instead.

Presenters will be notified of their acceptance status by December 7, 2008.

Papers and Posters

Completed papers and posters are due February 15, 2009. All papers and posters submitted by this deadline will be included in a CD of the conference proceedings.

Citations should follow the Chicago Manual of Style "Author-Date" system. Papers should be sent as PDF or Microsoft Word documents.

All papers and posters must be submitted electronically to be included in the conference publication CD, and on the conference website. Our goal is to have a tangible record of each contribution to the conference. The CD will be distributed to conference participants and selected others (such as deans and directors of national organizations such as the Carnegie and Teagle Foundations; authors will retain any copyright. We view this as "limited distribution" and we encourage conference participants to submit their work to journals and other publications. It would be appropriate to add a sentence to any such post-conference publication that reads "A version of this paper was first presented at the conference "Innovations in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Liberal Arts Colleges" held at Wabash College in March 2009." If you have any questions, please contact one of the conference organizers.

Suggestions for those preparing posters for the conference will be posted later and will be included when you are notified in December.