Centers for teaching and learning (CTLs) exist in dynamic contexts and need to be agile, with skilled, adaptable teams to prepare for and respond to changes. In this article, we provide CTL leaders with relevant and eminently practical strategies from the human resources (HR) literature, offering guidance in the four areas of organizational structure, direction-setting, capacity-building, and accountability. For each area, we address pivotal challenges with practical approaches grounded in existing research and theory to provide options for CTL leaders in their quest to have well-functioning, agile units. Examples focus on helping existing centers to adapt and refocus, as needed, in response to evolving contexts and priorities.

Tired of cringe-inducing icebreakers? We asked professional facilitators to share the virtual icebreakers they actually use to kick off their remote workshops.

The U.S. Air Force Academy is an unparalleled academic and military institution that provides young men and women with rewarding opportunities to transform into the leaders of tomorrow. As a public university and a military service academy, we are leading the way into an increasingly complex future, driving advancement and innovation in air, space and cyberspace. The mission of the United States Air Force Academy is to educate, train, and inspire men and women to become officers of character motivated to lead the United States Air Force and United States Space Force in service to our nation.

For those of you that work in CTLs. In search of newsletter tips. Do you create them? How often? We post PDFs of them on our website after they have been sent out campus-wide, but the information there is not searchable and not nearly as accessible as it should be.— Dr. Erin Whitteck (@EWhitteck) September 15, 2022

Baylor's Academy for Teaching and Learning supports a community of learning and promotes scholarship and service in a Christian environment.

Often working in multiple roles and operating at multiple scales, educational developers deal with layered tensions and a complex context that can be difficult for an individual or team to reconcile. In May 2020, the authors participated in a cross-institutional scholarly project, the Pandemic Educational Development Research Collaborative (PEDRC), designed to explore the impact of multiple crises (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic and our collective civil and political unrest) and associated large-scale instructional changes on educational developers and their work. The Contexts for Agency framework reflects the project’s emergent theme that the circumstances in which we act have considerable influence on our decision-making. Specifically, the framework identifies identity, institution, and impact as critical contexts for the decisions educational developers make. The authors highlight multiple benefits to analyzing what we know—and what we don’t know—about our respective contexts and offer suggestions for applying the framework using a guide for structured reflection.

(2022). Credibility in educational development: trustworthiness, expertise, and identification. Higher Education Research & Development: Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 804-819.

“Love my Simmons Center for Faculty Excellence Team. And we grow by the day!”

...

Applications are being accepted for the 2022 Learning Innovation Active Learning Institute. Applicants may apply for June 6-10 or August 1-5, 2022 cohorts of the program. The Active Learning Institute ...

_______________________ Throughout August, the CFT will be offering a number of workshops about various technologies and strategies to help you prepare to make the transition back to the classroom. You can find more details and full workshop descriptions of these events by visiting our August events web page. The Flipped Classroom Date: Wednesday, August 11th Time: 2:00-3:00pm Panelists: Chris Candelaria (Leadership, Policy, and Organizations), Lars Plate (Biological Sciences and Chemistry), and Heeryoon Shin (History of Art) Faculty panelists share lessons from pandemic teaching that will shape how they have students prepare for class and what they have them do in class this fall. REGISTER Teaching With Top Hat Date: Thursday, August 12th Time: 2:00-3:00pm Faculty Guest: Jesse Blocher (Owen) In this session you’ll hear about Top Hat, Vanderbilt’s student polling application. Jesse Blocher, associate professor of the practice at the Owen graduate school of management will share the ways he has used Top Hat for his classes. REGISTER Teaching for Wellbeing Date: Tuesday, August 17th Time: 1:00am-2:30pm Facilitators: Julaine Fowlin (CFT) and Stacy Simplican (Gender and Sexuality Studies) In this workshop, we will give an overview of wellbeing and the relationship to teaching and learning. Participants will apply the new