Center For Teaching & Learning
The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) provides development opportunities and resource support to faculty, staff, and students committed to sharing and enhancing effective strategies for teaching and learning.
An Educational Environment For All
The CTL is committed to creating a socially just and inclusive educational environment for our diverse community.
Main Areas Of Focus Include:
- Learning Motivation
- Innovative Pedagogy
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
- Blended/Hybrid/Online Applications
- Collaborative Partnerships
- Reacting to the Past (RTTP) Curriculum Initiatives
Available Programs:
Brown Bag Workshops
At Brown Bag Workshops faculty and staff are invited to discuss a topic during lunch. Drawing from contemporary teaching and learning research and practice, as well as the expertise and interests of our faculty and staff, these sessions provide workshops addressing critical areas of pedagogy worthy of focused attention.
Short Courses
Short courses are six-week programs, some of which are online and some face-to-face. The courses provide instruction in developing specific skill sets addressing specific pedagogical issues like:
- Blended/Online Instruction Short Course - The course will address the following focus areas: Course Basics, Assignment Design & Collaboration, and Customizing Courses.
- Social Justice & Inclusion Short Course – The course addresses integrating diversity into curriculum, designing effective group work, facilitating problematic speech, and navigating the benefits and challenges of immersive pedagogies.
Faculty & Staff Learning Communities (Reading/Discussion Groups)
This program provides opportunities for small groups of faculty and staff to meet and discuss shared readings on pedagogy related topics of interest.
CTL Grants for Pedagogy Research and Applications
Pedagogy research and application grants are competitive grants that support faculty efforts doing pedagogy research (up to $5,000) or integrating new pedagogy approaches to courses already in place ($1,000). These grants encourage faculty efforts toward pedagogy enhancement and future conference presentations and publication.
Engaging Pedagogy Conference: May 17, 2023
Inclusivity and Engagement: Charting the Course Ahead
Now accepting program proposal submissions. Conference registration will open in February.
TLU's Engaging Pedagogy Conference is a regional, interdisciplinary conference serving faculty and staff committed to producing deeper and more effective teaching and learning initiatives. The conference provides a forum for participants from over 20 regional schools to share the ways in which we critically reflect on our teaching and learning and creatively adapt what we know to serve our diverse community of students.
When we are at our best, students learn to critically reflect on their learning and life practices. National trends tell us that colleges and universities struggle to help students persist and succeed in this endeavor. In answer to these challenges, we will critically reflect on our own teaching and learning, and creatively adapt what we know to serve our diverse community of students, and by so doing, make ourselves better able to help our students.
The last two years have given us many reasons to rethink and revise our pedagogy and practices to focus on improving student engagement and creating a more inclusive, diverse, and equitable learning environment for all students. We have also learned that we and our students can do hard things: navigate a global pandemic, contend with the threat of violence on school campuses, and push beyond our comfort zones in conversations about politics and human rights. The focus of this conference will be on sharing what we have done and are doing to continue to make our classrooms spaces for learning and progress where all students feel able and welcome to engage in intellectual pursuits that help them live through the current moment while also preparing them for their lives ahead.
CTL Committee
- Sycora Wilson, Director, Student Success, and Retention
- Margaret Gonzales, Associate Professor of English & Director of Composition and the Student Communication Center
- Patrick Cereceres, Assistant Professor of Kinesiology
- Shirley Bleidt, Associate Professor, Education Department
- John Sieben, Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science
- Sam Hijazi, Associate Professor of Information Systems
- Danna Salinas, Assistant Professor of Nursing
- Rodrick Shao, Director of Center for Teaching and Learning