Strategic Priority 1
Elevate the value of teaching and learning as a scholarly practice and a core pillar of the institution by defining, fostering and recognizing teaching excellence and educational leadership.
Review the following strategic goals and additional work we have done in support of this strategic priority.
Goals:
| Explore teaching and learning topics and learn from others through communities of practice (CoP). | 0% | ||
| Incorporate academic leadership in the planning of the annual teaching and learning conference. |  |
100% | |
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Focus faculty development opportunities on teaching effectiveness, the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and educational leadership (phase 1). |
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85% | |
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55% | ||
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20% | ||
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Effectively promote innovative learning technologies and teaching methods to the Memorial community. |
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20% |
Our work:
CITL has designed a new process for identifying and supporting institutional nominations for external teaching awards, specifically the Atlantic Association of Universities (AAU) teaching awards and 3M National Teaching Fellowship. The process consists of a new Teaching Awards Committee established by the Office of the Provost. As part of this process, an internal call for nominations was made in fall 2023. Academic units (Deans or designates) were responsible for soliciting prospective nominees and nominators to submit a nomination brief to CITL.
Dr. Jane Costello, senior instructional designer, recently published research in the Sage Journal, E-Learning and Digital Media. In collaboration with Dr. Linda Rhor (formerly of the School of Human Kinetics and Recreation) and Laura Squires (Department of Sociology), their research focused on the use of Twitter in an online course to foster social presence to build stronger senses of community, and to motivate students to engage. Read the article.
Our Instructor Series is a semester of webinars for instructors who are looking for ways to enhance their teaching practice. Since fall 2022, adjustments to the Series included having sessions hosted by instructors, instead of CITL staff. This change has continued and has created opportunities for instructors to share their research and other work with peers to help advance teaching and learning practices across the university. View our recorded series playlist.
Each year, CITL administers the President's Awards for Excellence in Teaching and Post-Graduate Supervision. In an effort to create more visibility of our institution's award winners, we have been working to incorporate recipients into both the governance and programming of Memorial's annual Teaching and Learning Conference. In planning for the 2022 conference, we introduced a new faculty co-chair role that, going forward, will co-lead the event with a CITL co-chair. A faculty co-chair will be selected each year from the pool of Memorial's award-winning faculty members.
The Teaching Enhancement through Scholarly Inquiry (TESI) program was developed and launched for faculty participation, including 10 hours of professional development, SoTL grants for two-year research projects, and ongoing project support. Eighteen projects with 28 participants entered the program in fall 2022.