Below find…
Brock U (Giulia Forsythe)
Highlights
- New Director, Barry W.K. Joe joined CTLET. For the first time, this role will sit on Senior Administrative Council with VPAs
Challenges
- Developing an elearning plan that aligns with institutional strategic plan and provincial directions
Advice Needed
- Access Copyright, Contact North (may be covered at Dir Mtg- Nov19); Differentiation thoughts?
Carleton U (Maggie Cusson)
Highlights
- Teaching certificate in Rwanda, instructional designers for online courses, TA mentorship program
Challenges
- taking on new projects (not meant to be whiny, just realistic)
Advice Needed
- doing more with less – how to prioritize small but meaningful programs vs. larger initiatives
Advice to Give
- find/share effective solutions for faculty/TAs where possible – free software and online tutorials vs. costly software & inhouse workshops
Carole Dence (Higher Ed Research/ Projects)
Highlights
- 3M Fellowship Consulting; Research Project “Making Teaching Count at Selected Canadian Universities”; AHED-UPESED Registry Project Rwanda
Durham College (Ruth Rodgers)
Highlights
- We “disentangled” from UOIT, and now serve Durham College exclusively. New name Centre for Academic and Faculty Enrichment (C.A.F.E.)
Challenges
- Resourcing increasing demand while losing staff
Advice Needed
- Changing PD formats to meet changing market needs
Advice to Give
- E-learning object creation-we’ve had some interesting projects
Georgian College
Highlights
- Hiring a new Instructional Designer
Challenges
- Demands for online courses
Advice Needed
- Online Course Development models
Advice to Give
- Take a long term approach to all faculty development efforts (online learning, integrating technology, assessment strategies
University of Guelph (Janet Wolstenholme)
Highlights
- We have just started a community of Practice on grp work. Curriculum support has been on the increase and the graduate passport is a success
Humber ITAL (Theresa Steger)
Highlights
- The School of Health Sciences has an active Scholarship Work in Progress Committee whose mandate it is to advance Scholarship (Boyer)
Challenges
- A welcome challenge of connecting our work, without overlap, with the renewed Office of Teaching and Learning
Advice Needed
- Research related to teaching in higher education based on passion and professional strengths
Advice to Give
- Influencing the culture (community of learners) is important in addition to influencing pedagogical knowledge and skill
Lakehead University (Rhonda Koster)
Highlights
- Have hired a full time director and (very) part-time coordinator
Challenges
- New to job, so everything is a challenge!! 🙂 Trying to figure out how the centre can be relevant to faculty/instructors at the institution
Advice Needed
- How have others determined their services and programs in relationship to their ‘clients’ (faculty/instructors & administration) needs?
McMaster University
Highlights
- publication of three new teaching and learning resources – one for faculty; one for TAs; and one for those researching T&L
Challenges
- tremendous interest from non-traditional partners in T&L initiatives on campus (i.e., resources & novel approaches)
Advice Needed
- mechanisms to formally value & recognize T&L professional development for faculty & for TAs
Advice to Give
- Balance what you can do with what you want to do and with what has the greatest impact
UOIT (Maureen Wideman)
Highlights
- Took over all aspects of faculty development from our previous shared service model. Saw expansion of responsibilities – increase dept. size
Challenges
- Ensuring we could meet the needs of faculty around teaching & learning, technology, course development, etc.
Advice Needed
- Teaching certificates for TAs
Advice to Give
- Development of process for creating online courses
Queen’s University (Denise Stockley)
Highlights
- Lecture Capturing, NSERC-CREATE grant, Curriculum Redesign/IQAP
Challenges
- Lack of people resources to deal with the increased demands.
Advice Needed
- Coping strategies for the increased demands and limited resources
Ryerson U (Paola Borin)
Highlights
- John Paul Foxe is our new Educational Developer. Five new Teaching Chairs, New Professional Development in Teaching for Graduate Students
Challenges
- Defining a curriculum strategy for the university
Saint-Paul U (Andre Seguin)
Highlights
- hire of first distance and continuing coordinator
Advice to Give
- creation of online and continuing education programs
U Toronto (Pam Gravestock)
Highlights
- 1. Course Evaluation Framework initiative
- 2. HEQCO research project re: TAs
- 3. PATH Conference
- 4. CTSI secondments.
Challenges
- Setting boundaries for our work (with our expanded mandate and office – a challenge and an opportunity)
Advice Needed
- What creative ways are other centres using to address increasing demands from faculty for individual consultations?
Advice to Give
- With the restructuring of our office, we had to rethink a lot of the approaches we take to our work -allowing us to be more creative
Trent U
Highlights
- Initiated and coordinated the first Trent University – Fleming College conference on teaching with technology.
Challenges
- Institutional financial deficit resulting in a reduction to the operating and staffing budgets
University of Waterloo
Highlights
- Secured new position for curriculum work (welcome Veronica!), OND conference (2 days in 2011), strategic plan developed
Challenges
- Keeping up with the demand for curriculum support
Advice Needed
- Sustainable, meaningful models for assessing the impact of our work and how to engage students (and faculty) with increasingly large classes
Advice to Give
- Figure out what to stop doing!
U Western Ontario (Judy Purves)
Highlights
- 3 HEQCO grants (impact of programs on faculty & grad student dev)
- STLHE’s CJSoTL launch; ISW/FDW
- Teaching Squares; see wiki for more
Challenges
- budget cuts; new senior administration
Advice Needed
- How to get buy-in from administration re: SoTL; advice on equipment purchases (e.g. camera types for microteaching); invited speaker ideas
- Advice to Give
- mentoring program
Wilfrid Laurier U (Jeanette McDonald)
Highlights
- started three new communities of practice- hiring a new curriculum person to support program reviews/devts-exploring lecture capture technologies to adopt at Laurier-eportfolio pilot-grad advising project complete – sharing fdbk-exploring cert. program for graduate students with Grad Studies/Student Affairs
Challenges
- Finding a cloning solution so my colleagues and I can duplicate ourselves to get all the work done that comes our way! Seriously, trying to orchestrate appropriate growth in our centre – what are they and who do we need in what role to make that happen. Finding appropriate mechanism to reach ppl and get those there that you want there
Advice Needed
- Less so advice, but a question. Ok a few questions. Does your centre/position specifically value and support individual SOTL/SOED work? How do you integrate SOTL/SOED into your practice? If SOTL/SOED is not formally a part of your job, how do you fit it in if you choose to?
Advice to Give
- Revision and refocus – do those things well that mean the most and have the greatest impact. (I’m just starting this process now – wish me luck!)
U Windsor (Michael K. Potter)
Highlights
- First cohort through UTC, 93 workshops with attendance up 40%, 1,100 instructors now using LMS, culture changing
Challenges
- Coping with the overwhelming, and ever-growing amount of work we have to do while fending off vicious attacks from certain faculty
Advice Needed
- Deflecting attacks by disgruntled faculty who aren’t interested in finding out what we actually do.
Advice to Give
- Systematize your work into rigorous program-length offerings and get external validation/review!
