ISSOTL founding members on the past, present & possible futures of SOTL Randy Bass (Georgetown University), Angela Brew (Macquarie University), Gary Poole (University of British Columbia), Jennifer Meta Robinson (Indiana University)

This was the closing panel discussion. The big question they discussed and asked the floor about was “what are the most important changing conditions for education, global or local, that will shape the practice of SoTL over the next ten years?”

Each presenter provided some of their own views about where we might be. Randy Bass had been to a government meeting about future education and issues raised there were that data, scale and personalisation of learning would be future areas for educators. Data to refine theories and theory to refine practice is part of a circle. Will this be empowering or diminishing? One of the most powerful forces on education in the next ten years will be software and the data that is produced by this. If this becomes a changing condition for practice how will this change teaching? Things that this makes you think about are; are some things we do already obsolete because technology can do them, is SoTL a portfolio to link these things? Gary Poole provided examples of how education has changed through technology with students being able to undertake programme through the internet and using skype and this was not possible a decade ago. Jennifer talked about how universities are using corporations and business to provide advice and make links so how does this impact on education? Angela focused on the need to explore where academic activity is now done and how many educators now read in their own time, undertake research in this time and do not have an academic life where SoTl is part of everyday work. This needs to change so scholarly activity can become part of university life.

There were a range of interesting points from the floor but many focused on how the change with technology would impact on us all not necessarily changing all face to face teaching which students still want but in terms of the possibilities for learning and how we as educators can use technology to enhance student learning but also the data we can collect for our research activity.