Center For Teaching And Learning Research Articles

Developing theories of change to advance center for teaching and learning work

A theory of change is a prediction about desired outcomes and the actions that may prompt them. Research on educational change suggests that explicit theories of change are essential for effectively engaging in academic change work. While many centers for teaching and learning (CTL) express aims around organizational change, a recent study was not able to identify any theories of change made public in annual reports or websites. Therefore, we outline an adaptable process for other CTLs to discuss and make explicit their own theories of change. This process involves four steps, moving across scale of a CTL (large group, small group, and individual). We offer recommendations for other types of CTLs, such as “centers of one,” to develop a theory of change and theorize about current and potential utility of a theory of change for a CTL’s work.

Center for teaching and learning websites as online faculty development: A framework

Center for teaching and learning (CTL) websites help communicate information, services, and opportunities to institutional stakeholders while also serving as an institutional brand to external audiences. Thus, CTL websites must strike a balance of being publicly accessible and user-friendly while also providing various support, resources, and pathways tailored to faculty needs and development. Still, faculty attendance at and participation in CTL-supported faculty development programs and initiatives are persistent and pervasive challenges in higher education. Faculty have many competing priorities and may lack the necessary incentives or time needed to engage with such development opportunities, especially in in-person settings. CTLs are increasingly turning to online faculty development to provide faculty with access to professional development offerings anytime, anywhere. However, few, if any, studies focus on the CTL website as a form of online faculty development in and of itself. The purpose of this single-instrument case study was to shed light on CTL websites as a medium for online faculty development. Data were collected using Google Analytics and through heuristic evaluation and moderated remote usability tests with purposive samples of faculty from varying disciplines and higher education institutions. The case explored provided insights into website design, user experiences, and the information architecture of one CTL website. Findings and lessons learned are discussed, and a framework for online faculty development via CTL websites is theorized. Newly formed or existing CTLs may find value in the results.

Designing for impact: The center for teaching and learning as a cultivator of a faculty learner-leader praxis

Centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) address external and internal factors that influence teaching and learning. To accomplish this, often without additional resources, CTLs need an efficient and effective solution. By combining evidence-based practices in faculty development and a distillation of effective practices at three different institutions, the authors developed a sustainable, generative, learner-leader model for CTLs and others in faculty development to employ. The model emerged from an analysis of the authors’ collective and independent professional experiences, is grounded in a community of practice framework, and innovatively addresses the need for faculty leadership development. The authors describe the components of the learner-leader praxis and illustrate in narrative examples. By employing a learner-leader model, CTLs and others in faculty development can efficiently and effectively transform teaching and reach greater numbers of faculty.

Developing critical literacy: An urgent goal

Due to the recent changes in higher education, including a major shift to online learning and the reform of education, critical literacy skills of today’s generation of college students face the peril of an increasing decline. All students, developmental and non-developmental in online and face-to-face environments, need the well-organized, systemic effort of college educators to enhance students’ critical literacy, including critical thinking, reading, writing, and research skills taught in an integrated manner. To promote postsecondary critical literacy, the Professional and Organizational Development (POD) Network and centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) can expand collaborations with existing “writing across the curriculum and in disciplines” units by incorporating a “reading across the curriculum and in disciplines” component. They can also support undergraduate and graduate curriculum rooted in this integrated concept. CTLs and the POD Network can advance collaborative pedagogical and research projects focused on integrated critical thinking, reading, writing, and research skills. Such projects would involve writing and reading faculty, instructors in various disciplinary areas, librarians, and external partners.

고등교육 질 관리를 위한 수업컨설팅 프로그램 운영 현황과 과제

This study analyzes domestic university Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL) instructional consulting programs to improve higher education quality. We explore avenues for enhancement, emphasizing a universal approach for overall quality management. The research includes a detailed examination of a 4-year university's CTL instructional consulting program. First, in our survey of university instructional consulting programs, we found that every university operates a similar program. Secondly, we found shortcomings in domestic university instructional consulting programs, including insufficient support for self-instructional and lesson plan consulting, as well as distinct variations in content for target-specific consulting and a lack of systematic management. Thirdly, for effective instructional consulting program operation, we suggest three tasks: streamline program designs, offer personalized promotional services for professors, and establish/utilize a robust consulting system.

ANALYSIS OF CENTERS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING MISSION STATEMENTS

The purpose of this article is to analyse the mission statements content of the 100 top universities’ Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL). The study covers universities all over the world and the CTL’s mission statements were collected out of their official websites or brochures. Analysis showed that CTLs try to meet contemporary requirements and aim to support the academic community in several areas, such as: promoting a culture of continuous improvement, delivering several services, providing support to teaching staff, students, faculties of departments, creating a culture of collaboration, networks and connections, fostering innovation and excellence, establishing a student-centered approach, setting inclusion as a priority, forming a research-based and evidence-informed approach, integrating ICT and innovative teaching methods, investing in assessment and reflection, development of educational resources and quality assurance. Furthermore, a large proportion of CTL through their mission promote the overall educational vision of the institution they serve.<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0037/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Managing for agility in constant change: HR strategies for teaching center leaders

Centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) exist in dynamic contexts and need to be agile, with skilled, adaptable teams to prepare for and respond to changes. In this article, we provide CTL leaders with relevant and eminently practical strategies from the human resources (HR) literature, offering guidance in the four areas of organizational structure, direction-setting, capacity-building, and accountability. For each area, we address pivotal challenges with practical approaches grounded in existing research and theory to provide options for CTL leaders in their quest to have well-functioning, agile units. Examples focus on helping existing centers to adapt and refocus, as needed, in response to evolving contexts and priorities.

Innovation as socially shared practice: the contribution of the Teaching and Learning Center

Abstract The contribution describes a study on the organizational devices and the professional development programs carried out at the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) of the University of Siena and at the Teaching and Learning Lab (TLL) of the University of Macerata. The focus is on systemic actions capable to elicit innovation at an organizational level, starting from the work of the institutional centers for research, professional training, and digital enhanced learning embedded in the university. In the final paragraph, future developmental trajectories for constituting an inter-universities network of TLCs are discussed.

Data-driven iterative refinements to educational development services: directly measuring the impacts of consultations on course and syllabus design

Evidence-based practice in educational development includes leveraging data to iteratively refine center for teaching and learning (CTL) services. However, CTL data collection is often limited to counts and satisfaction surveys rather than direct measures of outcomes. To directly assess impacts of consultations on course and syllabus design, we analyzed 94 clients’ syllabi (32 faculty, 62 graduate students and postdocs) before and after consultations. Faculty and non-faculty clients demonstrated significant change following consultations (6% and 10% gains in syllabus rubric scores, representing 50% and 31% of possible gains and effect sizes of 0.73 and 1.04 standard deviations, respectively). We compared faculty clients to quasi-experimental control groups that did not receive consultations. Syllabi from non-clients scored lower and did not demonstrate similar changes across semesters. Attendance at a CTL seminar on course and syllabus design did not explain variation in clients’ syllabi. We discuss implications for assessment of CTL services and how we leveraged formative assessments to inform and iteratively refine our educational development practices.

How search committees assess teaching: Lessons for CTLs

This study updates and expands upon past work on how tenure-track hiring committees evaluate teaching effectiveness to provide centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) current data as they support graduate students and postdocs navigating the academic hiring process. In this study, 166 hiring committee chairs from nine academic disciplines and a variety of institution types (e.g., Baccalaureate, Master’s, and Doctoral) responded to survey questions addressing how they evaluate teaching effectiveness for tenure-track positions. Results indicate that hiring chairs across institution types and disciplines value a candidate’s teaching effectiveness. Hiring committees use a variety of documents to gather information about an applicant’s teaching, but the teaching philosophy statement is most common. The survey responses also provide greater clarity on what hiring chairs find effective in applicants’ teaching philosophy statements, diversity and inclusion statements, and presentations of student evaluations. We discuss implications of these findings for scholarship of educational development (SoED) researchers, CTL leadership engaged in strategic planning, and educational developers providing consultations and workshops for future faculty.

Fellow travelers: Taking stock of faculty fellows programs in the age of organizational development

Faculty fellows have long served as a staple of centers for teaching and learning (CTLs), but to date little to no evidence has been gathered regarding their broader impact. The current study provides a snapshot of U.S.-based faculty fellows programs today, based on a comprehensive review of CTL websites. We categorize faculty fellows programs across five modalities that reflect decades of evolution and adaptation in the field of educational development. Our findings are intended to provide the foundation for new pathways of research, practice, and inquiry regarding the implementation of CTL fellowship programs.

Academic developers as flexible generalists: responding to COVID-19

ABSTRACT The pandemic forced universities to move rapidly to remote teaching, and Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs) played a large role in ensuring that transition. We argue that the effectiveness of our work as academic developers lies in our style or approach as much as in any actions taken. This style of working – holding lightly to expertise, embracing a generalist status, and trading authority back and forth with faculty – was especially suited to the fluid and high-stakes nature of the moment. We suggest that cultivating this disposition might be an important outcome for CTLs to emerge from the pandemic.

Leveraging Collaboration and Peer Support to Initiate and Sustain a Faculty Development Program

In today’s impoverished higher education fiscal climate, especially considering the enormous financial implications to higher education of accommodating the changes required by the coronavirus pandemic, “nonessential” though highly important programs, such as centers for teaching and learning (CTLs), are very likely to be underfunded. In this study, we illustrate how underfunded programs can leverage peer collaboration and support to initiate productive, formal systems of assistance for faculty by describing a number of such programs developed by and/or coordinated by our CTL. Moreover, we propose that sustainable programs, especially at small liberal arts institutions, must include a strong component of peer networking and in-house expertise rather than relying on outside consulting services. In a climate of shrinking dollars, CTLs can still perform some key roles effectively while continuing to advocate for more adequate funding.

The Role of Centers of Teaching and Learning in Supporting Higher Education Students Learning

This paper studies the Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL) of the 100 top Universities in the world and investigates their role and services. The vast majority of these Centers is located in educational institutions of the US, the UK, Australia and Canada. CTL services cover many areas and target several portions of the university population. They try to meet contemporary requirements and aim to enhance teaching, learning and research processes. They usually do not restrict their fields of activities to teaching staff (faculty members, post-graduate students), extending them to students and research staff as well. Literature review indicates that the main areas in which students face difficulties and need help are: the pace of study, academic and study skills, some psychological factors, active participation in learning and self-directed learning. As a result, to help learning and enhance academic success, CTLs try to offer activities that boost academic skills (studying strategies and productivity enhancement), acceptable academic behavior, digital skills and general support and guidance.

Place-based Educational Development What Center for Teaching and Learning Spaces Look Like (and Why That Matters)

This study seeks to explore the physical spaces centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) occupy; with an emphasis on gaining a better picture of what CTL spaces look like; where they are located; how they developed: and what these spaces represent. We gathered visual, empirical, and qualitative data to take the first steps towards developing a shared vision of not only of our physical spaces, but also as a jumping off point for further analysis of the CTL as a meaningful place.

Cultivating an Institutional Culture that Values Teaching Developing a Repository of Effective Practices

Educational researchers developed an online repository of effective practices contributing to or enhancing the teaching culture at multiple higher education institutions as part of a larger project exploring institutional teaching culture. The repository was designed to be a companion document to the Institutional Teaching Culture Perception Surveys (ITCPS), a resource for administrators, educational developers, and Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL) striving to cultivate institutional cultures that support the development of teaching and learning. This paper outlines the methods for developing this repository, summarizes findings, identifies some of the practices included and highlights areas for future development.

All Aboard! Getting Faculty Mobilized for Emergency Online Teaching

This reflective essay describes steps taken by Business faculty in a U.S. Midwestern mid-sized regional university to assist faculty in making the rapid transition to 100% online teaching. These steps include the development of an online course template within the university’s course management system made available to all faculty with tips and video tutorials specifically tailored to business courses. The coronavirus pandemic forced faculty members at institutions across the world into teaching online in about two weeks. Many tenure-track professors and full-time instructors, who were required to complete extensive training prior to teaching online courses, were relatively well-prepared. In spite of this training, some instructors felt overwhelmed when the pandemic forced an immediate transition online. Adjunct instructors and some junior faculty were particularly affected. Consistent with the conservation of resources theory which suggests that individuals conserve their limited resources (e.g., time, money, etc.) to ensure availability when they are most needed, many instructors, particularly adjunct and junior faculty, were constrained by competing demands. Adjunct instructors often teach limited courses while maintaining full-time employment in their respective fields. Junior faculty also have limited resources due to service and publishing demands. The availability of a special online course helped these vulnerable faculty members make the rapid transition to emergency online teaching. This reflective essay also describes the results of a survey about this transition among both faculty and center for teaching and learning (CTL) staff. Lastly, we recommend strategies for CTLs and academic departments to prepare for future crises. “Deputizing” power-users in each academic unit to redistribute workloads during emergencies and sharing tips and tricks customized for their departments is one such strategy. Creating annual online training modules is another strategy to allow seamless transition to unexpected online teaching.

Growing Pains (and Opportunities): Launching a Center for Teaching and Learning During a Global Pandemic

This article provides a summary of the steps that were taken to launch a new center for teaching and learning (CTL) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Analysis of these steps explain how the inaugural director leveraged the pivot to emergency remote teaching to capitalize on faculty interest for educational development and increase collaboration between non-academic units that support teaching. Discussion also includes how strategic planning guided this process and ultimately garnered new staffing for this small center-of-one.

Rebuilding a Teaching Conference in a Pandemic: User-Centered Guiding Principles and Lessons Learned

The COVID-19 pandemic challenged educational developers, like instructors across the world, to pivot their traditionally face-to-face faculty development programs to online formats. At the Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning at George Mason University (classified as research-intensive and the largest public institution in Virginia, U.S.), we faced the challenge of reimagining our annual pedagogy conference that scaled from 497 registered in 2019 when it was face-to-face to over 800 in 2020 as it was moved online. Under pressures of limited resources and increased uncertainty, leaders can find it difficult to imagine pathways toward innovation rather than just daily responses to crises, yet centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) need to take and maintain leadership roles in our institutions. Here we outline our programmatic goals, our guiding user-centered principles (from user experience frameworks;i.e., Zarour & Alharbi, 2017), and the user-centered iterative design process from learning engineering (Kessler, 2019) that enabled our evidence-based decision-making processes to select conference support technology platforms and create the conference infrastructure and workflows. We discuss a variety of data sources that informed our decision-making processes throughout the conference planning and actual event. We share assessment results and lessons learned that guide innovation in CTLs and can be applied to a range of educational development programs from large conferences like ours to small workshops and even one-to-one consultations.

How a Flexible Teaching “Camp” Answered Our Pandemic Teaching Emergency

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty scrambled to move courses online and to master technology tools seemingly overnight. Keeping a focus on course design and teaching techniques became a central challenge for a center for teaching and learning (CTL) in the midst of the emergency move to online and blended learning. This article chronicles one CTL's design and implementation of a virtual Forward Looking Explorations in Teaching Camp (FLEX Camp) that aimed to address pedagogy and technology simultaneously by immersing faculty in learning experiences. It details the planning process, learning goals, key activities, assessment methods, and lessons learned from the FLEX Camp approach.