Abstract
Welcome to vol.14, no. 2 of the International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. We are pleased to be able to maintain our scheduled release of this journal on a biannual basis in May and November. Our May publication was, in hindsight, easier to prepare since most of the reviews for the May issue happened prior to the COVID-19 pandemic overwhelming our systems. This November issue has been more challenging to prepare since the entirety of this issue was produced in the midst of the pandemic.
Here, in a rural portion of South Georgia in the U.S., the co-editors were hardest hit locally in August and September and are bracing ourselves for another wave likely in December. But our reviewers, spread all over the world have experienced on-going waves of disease and disruption of their lives. For most of us in academia, the pandemic has forced us to learn new ways to deliver course content, and to make those deliveries multiple times as we accommodate students who attend classes in real-time both in-person and via video platforms, as well as students who are unable to attend in these formats. Additionally, new committees, or at least additional meetings of prior committees, have been needed to plan these new delivery modalities, make curriculum changes, respond to the potential and inevitable impacts of COVID-19 on our campuses, and manage all of the functions of our university and work-lives. On top of all of that, the co-editors and reviewers have added responsibilities for the processes required in producing this issue. In short, it is no small feat that we are able to present this issue of IJSoTL.
As we noted in the May issue, our reviewers form the backbone our production for IJSoTL, and without them, the journal would not be possible. While we greatly appreciate the work of our reviewers, we recognize this backbone is struggling to keep up. Pre-pandemic, we were able to receive manuscripts, send them out to reviewers and get a response to authors within about six to eight weeks. That has changed significantly, and now authors are patiently waiting on timelines that are more in the range of six months or more. In short, we need committed reviewers. We need you! If you are a reader or author of our journal, please consider becoming a reviewer, and passing this link on to others who are interested in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and knowledgeable enough to become a reviewer: (https://forms.gle/u6eAWFG8ajN62mJL6)
The articles in this issue contribute to discussions of flipped classrooms, metacognition and congruence. They address learners “learning to learn” as well as mastering content in literacy, calculus and language learning. Some authors address student feedback, while others focus on developing leaders and career tracks in higher education. Although diverse in specific focus, each article contributes to our larger conversation about how scholarship informs the practice of teaching, while the practice of teaching presses scholarship towards new insights.
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Recommended Citation
Liston, Delores; Gatch, Delena Bell; and Pellegrino, Joe
(2020)
"Letter from the Editors,"
International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning:
Vol. 14:
No.
2, Article 1.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2020.140201