TLC's 2007-08 Strategic Plan (PDF file)

TLC - Mission

The Teaching & Learning Center reflects the centrality of teaching to EKU’s mission. Faculty are all well prepared in their content areas, but very few faculty begin their careers with training or experience in teaching. Although a significant amount of research indicates that many students learn more and better in groups, for example, educational experiences are usually organized into lectures from the perspective of knowledge to be transmitted, rather than from the perspective of the learning process. Teachers who excel have usually learned to combine these perspectives effectively. The Teaching & Learning Center will serve EKU faculty throughout their careers, with the ultimate goal of providing the best possible learning experiences for our students. It will provide a focus for new faculty to find resources such as (1) mentor, (2) colleagues with similar concerns, (3) people who can answer questions and consult about particular teaching issues, and (4) a wealth of personal and library resources to help guide them through their first difficult years.

The Teaching & Learning Center will also stimulate campus-wide conversation about teaching. For many faculty, mid-career is a time to become more reflective about their teaching. The Center will be an important resource for strengthening teaching and enriching our academic culture. Through considered use of classroom research, assessment of new pedagogies and curricula, and revisiting their teaching philosophies, faculty can see their teaching as an enterprise for continual improvement. By mid-career, many faculty have developed methods that are particularly effective. The Center will help these excellent teachers share their expertise with others in a variety of ways. Faculty seeking new and creative ways to improve their teaching will be able to use an appropriate combination of EKU’s resources in faculty development and pedagogy, content choice, technology, and instructional design. Center activities may stimulate faculty to include students as active participants in their research projects and to try new approaches they would otherwise avoid.

For longer-term faculty, the Center will provide both an opportunity to share their accumulated wisdom about teaching through mentoring new faculty and an opportunity for renewal of their own teaching. The most effective faculty are those who are continually learning and whose teaching reflects that level of engagement throughout their careers. The activities for the Teaching & Learning Center will reflect the needs expressed by EKU faculty, at all stages of their careers, for support in their efforts to improve teaching and learning.

TLC - Goals & Objectives

The purpose of TLC to support the teaching excellence of EKU faculty is achieved through the goals highlighted below. TLC objectives are listed below each goal.

1. TLC will coordinate existing efforts and introduce new activities for faculty interested in improving teaching and learning.
   
   These activities may include:
   
   
   1. Strengthening a campus culture already focused on studying and developing skills in teaching and learning;
   2. Providing individualized instruction and consultation for course design, including the integration of new technologies;
   3. Organizing and producing teaching and learning conferences and workshops;
   4. Hosting breakfast and lunch discussions about teaching and learning;
   5. Organizing and promoting visiting workshop leaders who will contribute to the efforts of our learning community;
   6. Promoting satellite and video conferencing programs related to teaching and learning;
   7. Exploring ways to effectively assess instruction.
   
   
2. TLC will foster attitudes which value teaching and learning excellence.
   
   TLC will:
   
   
   1. Promote self-reflection and evaluation of teaching methods as a means of professional growth and achievement;
   2. Offer seminars and workshops in support of teaching and learning to EKU faculty and staff.
   3. Provide opportunities for learning to use a variety of teaching methods;
   4. Foster attitudes which will support student success; for example, that students be actively involved in the learning process and that assessment is essential to achievement of excellent classroom performance;
   5. Assist faculty in the assessment of their teaching and in documenting their teaching effectiveness.
   
   
3. TLC will help make teaching visible as a subject for research and as an occasion for ongoing dialogue with students about learning.
   
   TLC will:
   
   
   1. Organize the submission process and review of proposals for innovative pedagogical projects and programs;
   2. Encourage and support the presentation of effective teaching both on campus and at state/regional/national/international conferences and through publication;
   3. Communicate to faculty and staff opportunities for publication and professional development;
   4. Build a library of resources available for faculty use and work with the library staff to increase relevant holdings.

Services

The TLC provides a wide variety of services designed to enhance teaching effectiveness:

• EKU's Teaching Consultation Process, a peer mentoring program to help evaluate and strengthen classroom presence;
• Professional consulting on all aspects of instructional design, from syllabus creation through classroom presentation to assessment and evaluation;
• Instructional Development Center consultant to work with faculty concerning such things as distance learning, video, CD Rom;
• Library consultant to work with faculty concerning research resources;
• A computer lab specifically for faculty use, with stations designed to encourage collaborative projects and featuring the essential software and hardware (scanning, color printing, CD creation, etc.) to help develop new approaches;
• Forums (including "brown bag lunches") on best practices in teaching, scholarship and classroom technology;
• Special presentations and workshops by EKU faculty and invited speakers on topics related to faculty development (teaching, research, grant writing, etc.);
• Classroom visits for on-going discussion of instructional practices;
• On-on-one consultation for preparation of conference proposals/presentations and scholarly/pedagogical articles;
• Books, Videotapes and other faculty development resource materials.

Clientele

The TLC's services are available to all full-time and part-time EKU faculty (including those at our distance sites at Corbin, Danville, and Manchester). The Center also affords services to EKU staff as well as appropriate college students and high school faculty from our service region.

Assessment & Procedures

We will continue to use certain outcomes-based performance indicators to access mentoring, presentations, forums, workshops, and trips:

• Evaluations of both content and presentation for workshops, forums, and presentations;
• Evaluations of all mentoring carried out through the Teaching Consultation Process (TCP);
• Reports by participants (in the form of presentations) on their experiences at conferences and workshops to which they traveled sponsored by the TLC;
• Assessments by faculty of the relative success in the classrooms at strategies/techniques gained through TLC programs.