  The computing education community endeavors to consistently move forward,
improving the educational experience of our students. As new innovations in
computing education practice are learned and shared, however, these papers may
not exhibit the desired qualities that move simple experience reports to true
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). We report on our six years of
experience in running professional development for computing educators in
empirical research methods for social and behavioral studies in the classroom.
Our goal is to have a direct impact on instructors who are in the beginning
stages of transitioning their educational innovations from anecdotal to
empirical results that can be replicated by instructors at other institutions.
To achieve this, we created a year-long mentoring experience, beginning with a
multi-day workshop on empirical research methods during the summer, followed by
regular mentoring sessions with participants, and culminating in a follow-up
session at the following year's SIGCSE Technical Symposium. From survey results
and as evidenced by eventual research results and publications from
participants, we believe that our method of structuring empirical research
professional development was successful and could be a model for similar
programs in other areas.
