2025 Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) conference
- Conference Focus and Significance
- Keynotes, Panels and Activities
- Celebration, Recognition and Future Direction
The 18th annual Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) conference took place at the Protea Hotel by Marriott Stellenbosch in Technopark on 3 and 4 November 2025. The excitement in the room was tangible as more than 280 Stellenbosch University (SU) staff members from all faculties, various divisions and centres across the institution gathered to share their teaching-learning-assessment (TLA) research, innovative practices and reflections. The conference aims to create a space where Stellenbosch staff can come together to share and celebrate TLA at the institution. Dr Nicoline Herman (acting Senior Director: Division for Learning and Teaching Enhancement) welcomed staff members to the conference and asked that all observe a moment of silence for our valued colleague, Prof Lis Lange, who passed away on 8 October and who suggested the theme for this year’s conference.
As an introduction, Dr Herman shared with delegates that presentations for the conference were submitted in two streams: research on TLA and reflection on TLA practice or theory. Delegates could look forward to 73 presentations, 69 papers and four posters over the two days of the conference. This year there will also be 38 PREDAC (Professional Educational Development for Academics) posters from participants enrolled in the short course. Dr Herman then introduced Prof Richard Stevens (acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Learning and Teaching) for the official opening of the conference. We share some extracts from his opening address below:
“I would like to acknowledge and thank firstly Dr Nicolene Herman and the Division for Learning and Teaching Enhancement for their leadership in sustaining the scholarship of teaching and learning community at SU. I also want to thank our keynote panellists, who will guide our reflections and conversations today and tomorrow, our academic and professional and support staff from all faculties, who continuously strive to make learning meaningful and transformative, and of course, our students, whose questions, courage and curiosity remain our greatest teachers. Thank you. Your presence here matters.” Prof Stevens described how he views the space that the SoTL conference creates: “This is the 18th annual scholarship of teaching and learning conference at SU. Its continuity over nearly two decades speaks to the depth of our institutional commitment to reflective and research-informed teaching practice. The SoTL conference has always been more than a gathering of presentations. It is a space to pause and think about how and why we teach. It is a space for collegial dialogue, gentle challenge, and our shared purpose. Teaching is not only a professional act. It is a profoundly human one."
“It also requires awareness, intentionality, humility and care. Spaces like this invite us to examine our habits, our assumptions and our methods, and allow us to return to the classroom renewed. We do this work because reflective teaching improves student learning outcomes. It is not theory for theory's sake, but reflection in service of student success.”
On the theme of the conference, Prof Stevens stated, “I think this is such a fantastic theme that we have that I think the next two days surely are testament to that word. So this year's theme, ‘Language and Academic Literacies in Teaching, Learning and Assessment’, will bring us to the heart of student access, belonging and success. Language shapes our knowledge as
understood, expressed, shared and valued. It carries identities, histories, power and possibility. It can welcome or exclude. It can open pathways into disciplinary thinking, or it can make those pathways feel distant and inaccessible. As we engage with this theme, we are also engaging with questions of epistemological access, multilingual practice, and the cultivation of a confident academic voice. These questions matter deeply in our context. They matter for equity. They matter for student success. And they matter for the kind of university we are becoming and want to be.”
Prof Stevens ended the official opening by encouraging delegates to “… listen with openness, to speak with care, and to reflect with patience. Let us allow these conversations to shift something in us, even if quietly, because the true impact of SoTL is not measured today. It is measured in the classroom. It is measured in a student who begins to believe that they can succeed. It is measured in the moment a student begins to hear their own voice with clarity and confidence.”
A new and exciting feature at this year’s SoTL conference was the launch of the TLA Bingo@SU, designed to model an active learning strategy through gamification. Dr Benita Bobo, from the Centre for Teaching and Learning introduced this new feature to delegates. Drawing on the principles of game-based learning, the initiative invited participants to complete engaging tasks, collect stamps from “stamp champs” and stand a chance to win prizes – all while experiencing how playful, goal-driven activities can enhance learning engagement. Delegates were encouraged to explore how designing different kinds of active learning opportunities can enhance student learning.