Center for Teaching and Learning

Rationale

Teaching centers serve principally as resource centers, introducing new development in postsecondary education to the university. Often, centers are expected to offer services and support to faculty in course planning, instructional methods, program development, and evaluation, all rated highly by administrators as teaching improvement practices. Centers serve as clearinghouses for projects and new initiatives--for example active learning and problem-based learning--and encourage and support department or faculty-based projects. Centers may produce newsletters, fund projects, or promote excellence in teaching. It is increasingly acknowledged that centers for the improvement of teaching are cost-effective and in fact require a miniscule percentage of the teaching budget. Centers depend on a combination of resources, including the hard money operating budget, a small capital budget, research funds, and often funds from a foundation. Centers cannot accomplish all that needs to be done to improve the teaching and learning climate. They can serve as focal points, responsive to campus needs and with sufficient critical mass, to accomplish many organizational and educational tasks.

Goals and Objectives

The Center for Teaching and Learning will foster attitudes that value teaching and learning excellence. The CTL will:

• seek administrative recognition and valuation of CTL activities which are scholarly;
• encourage participants in CTL's community of learners to view teaching as a scholarly and academic endeavor;
• promote itself as an inclusive group that appreciates and promotes various ways of teaching;
• promote self-reflection and evaluation of teaching methods as a means of professional growth and achievement;
• foster attitudes which will support student success,
• assist faculty members in the assessment of their teaching and in documenting their
  teaching effectiveness;
• submit articles to student and campus news publications that promote Seaver College teaching scholars and teaching scholarship.

The Center for Teaching and Learning will establish communities of learners through organizing, publicizing and implementing teaching and learning programs. CTL will:

• work toward building a CTL learning community focused on studying and developing skills in teaching and learning. Areas of focus include: teaching portfolio preparation, orientation to teaching, syllabi preparation, managing student interaction, and the group process;
• produce and organize teaching and learning conferences and workshop;
  host lunch hour discussions about teaching;
• download and promote satellite and videoconferencing programs related to teaching and learning;
• develop a CTL web site and foster a community of CTL web site followers;
• produce programs that address specific issues such as diversity, service learning,
  and technology;
• organize and promote visiting professors who will contribute to the efforts of our learning communities.

The Center for Teaching and Learning will motivate and mentor faculty involved in the scholarship of teaching. CTL will:

• encourage and support the presentation of effective teaching at national/international conferences and through publication;
• communicate to faculty members and staff, opportunities for publication and
  professional development;
• build a library of resources available for faculty use;
• support faculty members participation in the Carnegie Campus Conversations program.

* One of the more popular features in the CTL is Teaching Tips, collected from various teaching resources all over the world.