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The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) faces an emerging challenge as it seeks to balance commitments to disciplinary inclusivity and scholarly quality. We undertake a scoping review of 64 articles across three leading SoTL journals to investigate how the literature balances these twin commitments by exploring what questions are being asked, what methods are being used, and how these may be impacting the inferences that are being made within that scholarship. We advocate for a more focused definition of SoTL that can help reinforce its legitimacy within institutional power structures of scholarship, and for partnerships across disciplinary boundaries to be a central pillar of SoTL that is both high quality and disciplinarily inclusive.

In 2016, Dalhousie University's Research Ethics Board created an interdisciplinary working group to identify the key ethical challenges of SoTL research, with the overarching aim of recommending best practices and communicating these to researchers in order to support and expand the conduct of ethically sound SoTL research. This essay reflects on the lessons learned through this process and shines a light on the three most contentious arenas that emerged: using class time to conduct SoTL research, integrating Students Ratings of Instruction (SRI) into SoTL, and incorporating student work as a data source. This essay contributes to the emerging conversation around ethical SoTL research in two important ways. First, we argue for more lenient REB protocols that encourage SoTL research by exposing how restrictive interpretations of key issues serve as obstacles for student-centered research. Second, we introduce new tools designed to address these impediments, including the first-ever interactive user guide. The overarching aims of this essay are (a) to help SoTL researchers navigate this complex terrain, and (b) to encourage other Canadian REBs to consider implementing more permissive regimes.

This paper addresses two crucial gaps in the scholarship on the design and execution Simulation-Based Education (SBE) -- the importance of scaffolding in constructing successful simulations for entry-level students and the associated value of social media tools. We examine these issues within three successive iterations of a role-play simulation employed in an introductory undergraduate course. We employ a mixed-methods approach that draws on self-reported learning outcomes from a total sample of 291 students across three years. We argue that running a successful simulated activity hinges upon careful design and scaffolding, and that incorporating social media tools can help to make the learning experience more immersive and more accessible for students.

This article investigates the particular mechanisms through which a role-play simulation impacts student perceptions of knowledge acquisition. Longitudinal data were mobilized in the form of quantitative and qualitative surveys to examine whether the simulation succeeded in increasing knowledge around both content and skills. It then delves deeper into the relationship between simulations and knowledge transmission by exploring the role of online technologies and stakeholder choice as mediators. This analysis reveals two major insights: (1) the importance of thoughtfully embedding the simulation within the overarching logic of the course itself, and (2) the potential contribution of online technologies to enhancing student knowledge acquisition.

Comparative studies of agricultural biotechnology regulation have highlighted differences in the roles that science and politics play in decision-making. Drawing on documentary and interview evidence in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany, we consider how the "regulatory cultures" that guided national responses to earlier generations of agricultural biotechnology have developed, alongside the emergence of genome editing in food crops. We find that aspects of the "product-based" regulatory approach have largely been maintained in US biosafety frameworks and that the British and German approaches have at different stages combined "process-based" and "programmatic" elements that address the scientific and sociopolitical novelty of genome editing to varying degrees. We seek to explain these patterns of stability and change by exploring how changing opportunity structures in each jurisdiction have enabled or constrained public reasoning around emerging agricultural biotechnologies. By showing how opportunity structures and regulatory cultures interact over the long-term, we provide insights that help us to interpret current and evolving dynamics in the governance of genome editing and the longer-term development of agricultural biotechnology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses pre- and post-surveys to assess learning outcomes associated with a role-play simulation set within a fictionalized extension of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Quantitative and qualitative data suggest that the simulation increased student appreciation of the complexity of international negotiation, but decreased student interest and self-assessment of skill proficiency. These results underscore the learning potential of the role-play simulation: it challenges notions of student idealism, leaving students with a more realistic sense of why Multilateral Environmental Agreements are so difficult to negotiate in the real-world.

Biofortifying staple crops with enhanced nutritional content has been touted as a means of addressing micronutrient deficiency and has emerged as a key component of the Green Revolution for Africa (GR4A). In Uganda, biofortification efforts have centered on utilizing genetic modification (GM) as a means of enhancing the East African Highland Banana, known locally as matooke. This paper draws on three data sets to evaluate whether this technological fix synchs with existing farming systems. We argue that the positive scenario outlined by proponents rests on a number of assumptions related to the health, social and economic contexts facing producers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented to articles published in the issue of the journal on topics such as the role of genetically modified crops in poverty reduction, agricultural development, and yield-enhancing technologies in developing countries.

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