The Center for Excellence in Teaching (CET) will host the 3rd annual “The SoTL Commons” conference on the campus of Georgia Southern University. The conference brings together people engaging in SoTL and anyone wanting to improve student learning outcomes in higher education today. The conference epitomizes that college teaching is intellectual work that is enhanced both by disciplinary scholarship and the scholarship on teaching the disciplines (SoTL). The SoTL Commons Conference is a catalyst for learning, conversations and collaborations about SoTL as a key, evidence-based way to improve student learning.

The keynote speakers will be Dr. Carolin Kreber (University of Edinburgh), Dr. Kathleen McKinney (Illinois State University), and Dr. Gary Pooler (University of British Columbia).

A free shuttle service is provided for conference participants during specified dates and times. To reserve a space on the shuttle to/from the Savannah Airport to/from one of the three approved hotels or the conference site, complete the following request form. The logo for the conference is the chambered nautilus shell. The self-propelling nautilus grows chamber by chamber, each one larger than the previous one, in an unfolding spiral as it develops steadily over time. The shell's elegant trajectory opens outward and its dynamic design is like the persevering, quiet movement of SoTL through the currents of teaching and learning. The SoTL Commons Conference aspires to be a growing, spiraling, lively catalyst for the international momentum of SoTL, encouraging the opening up and opening out of teaching and how students best learn into public conversations and collaborations. The spiraling pattern of the nautilus is found throughout nature. The conference is simply, but importantly, one swirl in the overall SoTL spiraling transformation of the nature of teaching and academic culture.

A SoTL companion to “The SoTL Commons Conference” is the open access, peer-reviewed eJournal, International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, published by the CET at Georgia Southern University.