Consultations with CTE's Teaching and Learning Specialists are available to you as faculty members, depending on your needs. Consultations are typically one-on-one sessions that are private and confidential and begin with a request from you.

• When you want to discuss general teaching issues, such as course design, course evaluation, classroom management, or program curriculum design, contact Trevor Holmes.

• When you want to explore how learning technologies can engage your students, contact Mark Morton or Jane Holbrook.

• When you want to do research on your teaching or on your students’ learning, contact Trevor Holmes.

Faculty Learning Communities are typically formed as groups of 8-12 professors from different disciplines who agree to meet around a certain topic for a year (1). Although it isn't mandated, people who participate sometimes find they want to undertake an individual or group research project based on what they're learning. The main thing to keep in mind is that you're gathering together as a cohort (e.g. new faculty, mid-career faculty, etc.) or because of a topic that you want to know more about (e.g. teaching larger classes, lecture skills, particular technologies, community service learning, etc.).

Beginning January 2008, CTE began hosting one such group facilitated by Trevor Holmes, Senior Instructional Developer. The topic for this Learning Community is Supervising Graduate Students. The main criteria for selecting participants is a commitment to meeting for 1.5 hours every three or four weeks for a minimum of one term, together with a keen desire to work on the topic in a self-directed, scholarly community across disciplines. We invite faculty from any career stage -- from brand new to near retirement -- to apply by contacting Trevor Holmes.  If you are looking for something more than a single workshop but something less formal than a course or a series on this topic, consider joining us to share strategies, resources, and recent research.

1. Cox and Richlin, eds. Building Faculty Learning Communities. New Directions for Teaching and Learning 97 (Spring 2004).

What are Focus on Teaching events?

Focus on Teaching events are collaborative, facilitated sessions designed specifically for your department. Your event can range from a couple of hours to a full day and will focus on issues that impact teaching in your discipline.

Why organize a Focus on Teaching event?

Teaching constitutes 40% of most faculty members’ time commitment. Yet time is rarely set aside to share and reflect on issues related to curriculum and course development within a department. A great deal of expertise exists in departments regarding disciplinary teaching techniques. At the same time, expertise exists within the Centre for Teaching Excellence that could enhance teaching practices. By bringing both resources together, a department’s members can truly benefit. Past participants have highlighted these advantages:

• "Sharing various strategies amongst colleagues helps me adjust my teaching."
• "Examples applied directly to our field."
• "I am now motivated to try new things."

What can we do at a Focus on Teaching event?

Events can include one or a combination of facilitated discussions, guest speakers, faculty panels, poster sessions, or hands-on workshops. Depending on your issue and the time you can commit, an event will be custom-designed for you.

How can I arrange an event?

The process begins when you contact the Centre for Teaching Excellence. A planning meeting is arranged that includes a Centre for Teaching Excellence Instructional Developer, your CTE liaison, and faculty members from your department to discuss possible topic areas and facilitation methods. The Centre for Teaching Excellence Liaison or Instruction Designer develops an event plan, in close collaboration with the faculty members, and offers to facilitate the event when appropriate.

The Centre for Teaching Excellence will assume responsibility for the cost of any event materials (e.g., readings, photocopies). Departments are asked to identify one or more faculty members to work with the Centre for Teaching Excellence designer, to locate and book an appropriate room and time for the event, to advertise the event, and to cover associated costs (e.g., food, room charges).

Focus on Teaching Events provide a cost-effective way to invest in the teaching development of faculty members in your department and help to foster an environment that values the importance of teaching.

An Annual Retreat for UW Faculty Members

The TEA provides you an opportunity to re-design one of your courses. You will work with other faculty members – as well as Instructional Developers from the Centre for Teaching Excellence – in a retreat-like setting for four days. We engage in both small-group and individual activities to move you through a course design process that will enable you to create a revised course that aligns intended learning outcomes, teaching activities, and student assessment.

Sample topics to be covered include understanding ourselves as teachers, understanding our students, creating concept maps, setting learning outcomes, aligning outcomes with teaching activities and student assessment, and designing course outlines.

At the end of the retreat, we arrange a showcase of the revised course outlines to celebrate our work and share our learning with the wider campus community.

If you are interested in participating in the TEA, please speak to your Department Chair or Director. Faculty members nominated by their Chair or Director will be invited to attend.

For more information about the TEA, contact Donna Ellis.

Every year, typically once per term, award-winning teachers at UW are asked to open their classrooms to their colleagues so there can be an exchange of ideas about teaching and learning across campus.  When you register for an open classroom event, you receive contextual information about the class you will be attending, along with an observation form that encourages you to jot down ideas you can transfer to your own teaching. 

After the open class, the faculty member who taught the class leads a discussion with you and the other observers.  This is a great way to see what your colleagues are doing in their classrooms, engage in a community about teaching and learning, and gain new ideas for your own teaching.  Watch for notices by email and from your faculty liaison.

For more information about the Open Classroom Series, please contact Trevor Holmes.

The Centre for Teaching Excellence has developed an online resource to assist departments undertaking program reviews in accordance with the mandated guidelines by the Ontario Council of Academic Vice-Presidents.

If your department or school is engaging in a curriculum design or re-design, Centre for Teaching Excellence consultants may be able to assist you.  For example, we can provide impartial facilitation of curriculum committee meetings, design and change management processes to follow, and workshops to support faculty members in the move to a new curriculum.  For these types of assistance, please contact Trevor Holmes.

Research projects can also be conducted about your curriculum projects.  For more information about assistance with curriculum research, please contact Trevor Holmes.