University of Windsor COED 2008 Update

From OUCEL Wiki

University of Windsor, Centre for Teaching and Learning November 2008

Alan Wright, Erika Kustra, Jeanne Drouillard and their Team of Heroes

New Developments & Highlights

1. Explosive growth Over the last year or so, the Centre for Teaching and Learning has experienced rapid, awe-inspiring growth. The Teaching and Learning Development team, directed by Erika Kustra (who joined us in August 2008 from McMaster University), now includes six staff (four full-ime and two part-time) plus a rotating roster of Visiting Fellows in Educational Development. The Teaching and Learning Technologies team, directed by Jeanne Drouillard, now includes 18 staff divided into an Educational Technologies unit and a Media Productions unit. We operate under the auspices of the Office of the Vice-Provost, Teaching and Learning (Alan Wright), whose staff also supports many aspects of the CTL’s work. As the Centre grows, programs and services have increased comcomitantly. Between 1 July 2007 and 30 June 2008, just to cite one example, we offered 35% more workshops with an overall increase in attendance of 46%.

2. STLHE 2008: A World of Learning In June, the CTL hosted the 2008 STLHE conference, called “A World of Learning”. The conference was a tremendous success, and provided the newly expanded CTL teams a chance to work together on a large scale as a sort of “trial by fire”. We approached the conference as an opportunity to build capacity at our own campus through the process of planning the conference and the opportunities it afforded. All involved seemed to have a good time.

3. Centred on Learning Innovation Fund (CLIF) The CLIF grants were launched in 2007 to support projects that advanced the University of Windsor’s mission of learning-centredness. For the first batch of grants, the CTL asked applicants to focus on projects that contributed not only to the advancement of learning-centredness in general, but also to the development, implementation, assessment, and exploration of learning outcomes in particular. Projects could be funded up to $2,500, or up to $5,000 if matched by faculties. In 2007-8, 14 projects were funded. Most of these led to workshops and presentations at STLHE; some led to the creation of educational DVDs, website materials, and even a textbook.

4. GATAcademy Our embryonic GA/TA development program kicked off with the first-ever “GATAcademy”, a one-day workshop event for GAs and TAs in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Faculty and CTL staff led workshops on all manner of topics for over 80 GAs and TAs – a higher turnout than we’d anticipated, given that we were catering to only one faculty and that there is a limited history of GA/TA development here. The GA/TA program is expanding throughout the year, with a learning community, workshops, a mini-course, consultations, classroom observations, web resources, and Dr. Wright’s existing graduate credit course.

5. CLEW The University of Windsor’s new Sakai-based learning management system, CLEW, was launched in 2007-8. As of the fall 2008 term, over 700 CLEW sites had been created. Most users of the previous LMS have transferred their sites over by this point. The CTL and Information Technology Services continue to collaborate on upgrades, training, andtroubleshooting.

6. Teaching and Learning Technologies Spreading Across Campus Aside from the LMS, the CTL also supports the adoption of other teaching and learning technologies. Clickers are now used by a range of courses in Business, Psychology, Biology, Women’s Studies, Nursing, Chemistry, and Engineering. In addition, 464 podcast sessions have been created and uploaded to the central podcast directory. The CTL site hosts more than 400 items for streaming. The CTL’s efforts to make learning spaces more user-friendly, accessible, and flexible has resulted in 50 classrooms featuring permanent multimedia equipment, as of June 2008.

7. Video Production CTL staff were involved in well over a dozen video projects for the University of Windsor community, including: a series of vignettes regarding social justice issues in the classroom, interviews with visiting academics and educational developers (Virginia Lee, Carl Wieman, Neil Fleming), and STLHE conference videos.