CTL Reports
Our CTL annual report offers insights into our program status and day-to-day operations during the past year. This period has witnessed significant growth and transition within the Centre for Teaching and Learning as we actively implemented our strategic plan.
Our report highlights this growth, which stems from aligning our programs to support faculty and UBC’s Strategic Plan. We focus on community engagement, professional development for faculty and TAs, scholarship of teaching and learning, and innovative learning technologies.
Executive Summary
The Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) is the source for professional development, learning, and collaboration for instructors as they tackle key challenges of ensuring accessibility in courses, modifying content in the presence of artificial intelligence (AI), and creating inclusive learning spaces.
Our core mission of the CTL is faculty support, and the form of this support is evolving as we have emerged from online teaching during COVID. High-value, intensive training sessions such as the four-day Instructional Skills Workshop (ISW) for all faculty, post-doc and grad students and the Teaching Development Program (TDP) targeted at new UBC faculty continue to grow and positively impact more people.
Since 2021, we have delivered the Teaching Assistant (TA) Foundational Training program that provides training to TAs across UBC Okanagan, funded by the ALT-2040 Fund. In the Winter 2022 term, 366 TAs were trained across both semesters.
We support instructional technologies such as Canvas. The move back to in-person classes has changed the volume and types of requests, and we maintain highly responsive support in collaboration with LT Hub and the Centre for Teaching, Learning and Technology (CTLT) in Vancouver.
Highlights
- Release of CTL Strategic Plan 2023-2028
- Celebrate Learning Week – Power of Place in May 2023
- Appointment of Academic Director
- New support for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) including SoTL seed grants
- Teaching Fellows recognition and formation
of our CTL advisory group - Over 100 participants in workshops on EDI,
course design, and learning technologies
- Launch of Curriculum MAP project in
collaboration with the Provost Office - Hosting support for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL)
- Letter of Completion micro-credential
(through the College of Graduate Studies
(CoGS) for TA foundational training - Support for Quality Assurance Process Audit (QAPA)
Recognizing exceptional instructors is critically important, and we provide assistance and adjudication for internal and external teaching awards, including:
- the Provost’s Teaching Excellence and Innovation Award,
- Excellence for Teaching Assistants Award,
- the Killam Teaching Prize,
- the West Coast Teaching Excellence Awards, and
- the 3M National Teaching Fellowship.
Initiated by the CTL and supported by the Provost’s office, a new recognition was also created, called Teaching Fellows, recognizing ten instructors for their contributions to teaching and learning on campus. The Teaching Fellows also form the CTL advisory group, helping to provide community feedback and direct CTL priorities.
Looking forward, there is excitement with the recent hirings to fill new roles to address Indigenous Initiatives, including our new educational consultant for Indigenous initiatives and an Indigenous grad student in the role of Indigenous Fellow.
Another new role is the Manager of Learning Technology and Strategy. The coming year will see new initiatives aligning with our strategic plan that will expand the scope and impact of our department to build our teaching and learning community at UBC Okanagan.