Creating a common student-centered approach to teaching and learning
Striving to become a student-centered campus is a primary motivation and central project of Academic Futures, as well as a key focus of Foundations of Excellence and the IDEA Plan. The project calls for a coordinated and collective effort in undergraduate teaching and learning, including developing a common learning experience, establishing a teaching and learning center, and taking a unified approach to advising. These important ideas are supported by the work of both Financial Futures and Strategic Facilities Visioning, and are tied to a host of other ongoing strategic projects CU Boulder.
Later this month, the university will announce the structure of its Center for Teaching and Learning, which, under the direction of its new director, Kirk Ambrose, will be a combined resource for all who have a teaching role on campus – from tenured faculty to graduate students to adjunct instructors.
The Center for Teaching and Learning will also be a hub for professional development on teaching and learning best practices for faculty and graduate students. The new center will build assessment capacity for faculty and departments, provide resources on inclusive pedagogy, and develop an education community of practice that allows best practices and innovative ideas to flow across the university.
The Foundations of Excellence Advising Committee forwarded recommendations to the provost to improve the advising experience for CU Boulder students – projects that have been approved and funded.
The Inclusion, Diversity and Excellence in Academics (IDEA) Plan, the campus’s blueprint for cultivating diversity, inclusion and equity and improving campus culture and climate, currently under review of campus leadership, will focus on a number of key provisions designed to improve the student experience in the classroom by creating an inclusive pedagogy community of practice for faculty facility via the Center for Teaching and Learning.
Together, these initiatives work to focus faculty and staff efforts on reimaging and revitalizing the student experience and integrate the campus’s strategic imperatives—lead, innovate, impact—by improving the experience of CU people—students, faculty and staff—and the quality of CU programs, and the positive outcomes that occur from the symbiosis of both and that serve the public good.