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For educators, community-focused Scholarship of Teaching and Learning events can feel a lot like an open jam session.

Ideas are workshopped, questions become research projects, and collaborators find one another. Like musicians trading riffs and building on each other's ideas, emerging and established educators leave with fresh perspectives and renewed inspiration for their work.

That spirit was on display at the second annual event, where 50 attendees from four Alberta institutions gathered at Mount Royal University (MRU) for a day of speakers, networking and connection. 

A partnership between the , MRU's , and , Bridging the Bow is a professional-development and networking opportunity for scholars from institutions across Calgary.

���Sharing insights from our teaching and learning scholarship is a community activity at its core,��� says , PhD, co-chair for Bridging the Bow and educational developer with the Taylor Institute.

���The scholarship of teaching and learning is a field that brings together different disciplines and for many it creates a space to test new ideas and rethink how we teach and students learn.���

For event panellist Austin Ashbaugh, SoTL events are community-driven incubators for ideas. 

���A question a TA has on their first day of teaching lab can become a full-fledged SoTL project if brought to community events like Bridging the Bow,��� Ashbaugh says.

A PhD candidate in the , Ashbaugh, BSc, MSc, recounted their SoTL journey from a second-year undergraduate attendee to panellist and how interest in the field has grown rapidly since then.

���Ten years ago, SoTL wasn���t being discussed like it is today," Ashbaugh says. "Many of the discipline-specific conferences I go to now have an education and outreach symposium that highlights SoTL work within a discipline-based education research framework.���

To students, effective teaching can look like innate talent ��� ideas landing cleanly, discussions flowing naturally and learning unfolding with ease ��� but behind that ease is often the use of research-informed instructional approaches shared in an active, thriving community of practice.

Like musicians who iterate on one another���s rhythms, educators refine their craft together, testing ideas and building on one another���s work. Events like Bridging the Bow make that collaboration visible, showing how what looks like individual talent is actually shared effort over time.