Call for Group Facilitators | 2026 International Collaborative Writing Groups (ICWGs) Academic Track
ISSOTL Communications
We invite applications for Group Facilitators for the 2026 International Collaborative Writing Groups (ICWGs), scheduled to take place in Saskatoon, Canada, as part of ISSOTL26. ICWGs bring together faculty, staff, and students to co-author articles for submission to Teaching & Learning Inquiry on topics of shared interest from an international perspective.
Applications are due by February 16, 2026
The ICWG Academic Track is designed to support collaborative, international scholarship. Group Facilitators play a central role in shaping inclusive, reflective, and generative writing communities that bring together faculty, staff, and students from diverse contexts. Facilitators are invited to propose broad, conceptually rich topics aligned with the ISSOTL26 conference theme and subthemes, while remaining open to co-development and refinement once groups are formed. Topics should be suitable for international collaboration, attentive to relational and ethical dimensions of SoTL work, and oriented toward the development of a publishable manuscript for submission to Teaching & Learning Inquiry (TLI).
Theme and Process
The ISSOTL 2026 Conference theme is Building Bridges: Strengthening Relationships and Networks in SoTL. The six areas below are flexible entry points rather than discrete categories, and proposals may span multiple themes.
- Student Learning and Educational Practice: Focuses on improving student learning via teaching practice. Projects may explore classroom innovations, curricular approaches, or learning experiences, considering their translation into SoTL inquiry. Attention may be given to reflective learning, teacher identity, and conditions supporting engagement and growth.
- Relationships, Partnerships, and Collaboration in Teaching and Learning: Centers on the relational and collaborative aspects of teaching and learning, such as student–faculty partnerships, interdisciplinary collaboration, and shared responsibility for learning. Projects can explore trust, psychological safety, power, and care for effective collaboration and partnership.
- Teaching and Learning Support Ecosystems: Explores how partnerships with academic support services—advising, libraries, learning centers, instructional design, technology, and wellness—shape teaching, student learning, and SoTL. Projects can focus on support networks, relations and coordination across roles, and ethical approaches to student and faculty development.
- From Practice to Scholarship: Invites work explicitly examining the process of moving from teaching practice to SoTL scholarship. This could cover topics like research design, methodological innovation, ethics, positionality, and writing for SoTL audiences. Projects may also explore the role of self-awareness and reflexivity in SoTL inquiry.
- Improvement, Innovation, and Change through SoTL: Focuses on SoTL’s role in improvement and innovation in teaching, curriculum, policy, or institutional practice. Emphasis is placed on evidence-informed, ethical responsibility, applying SoTL findings to real-world contexts, including attention to culture, well-being, and sustainability.
- Leadership and Community in SoTL: Examines leadership in SoTL at individual, programmatic, and institutional levels. Projects may address mentoring, faculty development, leadership learning, social networks, community-building, and sustaining SoTL initiatives. Leadership is viewed as relational, reflective, and distributed, grounded in shared purpose and responsibility for learning.
Applicants should propose a topic aligned with the themes above and ensure it is inclusive of a globally diverse group. Use your expertise and creativity to shape the topic.
ICWGs culminate in a manuscript submitted to Teaching & Learning Inquiry. Each group brings together faculty, staff, and students to co-create articles on teaching and learning from an international perspective.
The 2026 ICWG includes an in-person workshop (October 25–27) in Saskatoon, Canada, immediately before the ISSOTL26 conference (October 28–31). Groups collaborate online before and after the conference. All group facilitators and participants are expected to attend the pre-conference workshop and register for the conference.