Center for Teaching Excellence

What is the Center for Teaching Excellence?

The Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) held its grand opening in January 2017. Officially named the Judy Zimmerman Center for Teaching Excellence, the goal of the CTE is to provide and promote teaching and learning excellence through collaboration of faculty, creation of professional development relating to pedagogy, and the nurturing of the faculty community to support and encourage their academic, professional, and personal potential. The space is a comfortable setting with computers for faculty use, couches that allow for relaxed meeting space, and both large and small conference areas with Smartboards.

Library

The CTE has an extensive list of books that are available for faculty to read in their off hours. Topics include: Universal Design for Learning, Online Teaching skills, Open Resource information, and a host of others.

Center offerings

Every month, the CTE hosts trainings and lunch and learns about topics ranging from online teaching, Open Education Resources, recording videos for online learning, Canvas, to Smartboard. On the weekdays, someone is available in the CTE to assist with questions on curriculum, course edits, course design, pedagogy and other questions. The Center is open for faculty use on the weekends but is not staffed.

OER

Whenever possible, Open Education Resources (OER) are suggested to be used for developing or redeveloping courses. Open Educational Resources (OER) are resources that are freely available to students online. They include books, journals, and other readings. Some are offered at a reduced price by printing or receiving a printed copy of the materials. By implementing OERs, there is potential to save money on textbooks. For more information visit the Hoffman Family Library OER libguide.

UDL

The CTE coordinator is a Teaching Fellow in the Universal Design for Learning (UDL) pedagogy. UDL (CAST, 2018) is a scientifically based framework for proactively designing curricula, implementing instruction, and assessing learning, so all students have equal access to learning. The CTE coordinator is available to assist with making changes to a course curriculum to include UDL. You can find additional information on UDL by visiting the Goodwin University Institute for Learning Innovation.