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Centers for Teaching, Learning and Technology

Explore key decision points in integrating technology into teaching practices. Understand purpose, support systems, and challenges in aligning technology with educational goals within academia.

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Centers for Teaching, Learning and Technology

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  1. ...What Fits Your Institution? Kathy Christoph, University of Wisconsin Carrie Regenstein, University of Rochester Ruth Sabean, University of California, Los Angeles Centers for Teaching, Learning and Technology

  2. Panel on Key Decision Points Choices and Guidelines General Rules of Thumb Show Stoppers Conclusions and Q & A Overview of Presentation

  3. What is the purpose? • Raise all ships or support lead innovators? • Support faculty or support supporters? • Focus resources or place close to faculty? • Effective use of technology or get high YAHOO ratings?

  4. What is the purpose? • Safety net or support for all? • Improve instruction or use technology? • Raise faculty awareness of teaching or get them to use IT? • Meet a need or stay competitive with peer institutions

  5. And who supports it (and has funding)? • President • Provost/Chief Academic Officer • Deans • CIO/CTO • Director(s) of Computing • Librarian

  6. Institutional teaching practices? • Private faculty purview or teaching as public practice? • Teaching as scholarship or drudgery? • Faculty or institution owns courses? • Academic rewards for creation but not reuse?

  7. And culture? • Cottage industry or team-based development? • Enhance traditional or experiment with new formats? • Academic towers or inter-disciplinary tapestries? • Control or collaboration?

  8. Institutional technology goals? • Trailing edge or leading/bleeding edge? • Standards in key areas or local/personal choice? • Support mission or keep up with national trends? • Needed tools for all or catch as catch can?

  9. And culture? • Centralized or distributed or decentralized? • Wild west or consensus around key components? • Reinvent or reuse?

  10. Place the Center in the central IT Org if the Org ... • is well respected by faculty • already has support of instruction as a primary component of its mission • has an established and successful model for working with local IT support providers (if that’s necessary)

  11. …and if • the champion is an IT person with a strong academic background, e.g., a (former) faculty member

  12. But your challenges will be to maintain... • credibility without overstepping programmatic authority and responsibility • relationships with other campus support providers • internal organizational relationships between IT Center staff and other support staff

  13. …and to maintain... • balance between being a “utility” to support courses and/or test-bed for innovation • sanity, with growing demand-especially if “linkage with research” is added • qualitative vs quantitative measure of value by customers

  14. Place the Center in the Teaching Support Org if... • technology support is more distributed than centralized • there is strong central support for teaching • faculty are actively engaged in academic policy and practice

  15. …and if… • an existing teaching center has resources as well as faculty governance and respect • the champion and funding are on the academic side

  16. But your challenges will be to... • build a vision for a consistent technology support infrastructure for faculty and students • integrate IT experts and teaching experts • advocate appropriate use of simple tools rather than newest tools

  17. …and to... • keep technology budgets from usurping all teaching support budgets • help local IT support staff build expertise in pedagogy

  18. Choose a “virtual center” if... • you have roughly equal strength in the IT and teaching organizations • the IT and teaching organizations are modest in size (staff and budget)

  19. …or if... • either the IT or the teaching organization is new and needs time to develop • you have a cooperative working relationship or promise of one

  20. But your challenges will be... • Coordination • Cooperation • Collaboration

  21. Thumb Rule 1: A hybrid may be your best choice • Multiple champions, strengths, centers may exist • Flexible, rapid change will be easier • Even if you choose a Center, the “virtual” happens anyway • Centers are “in” and everyone wants a piece

  22. Thumb Rule 2: Whichever model you choose... • It will require continual review and tweaking • It will be imperfect, so build links to all key components • It will create new problems, so keep watching and learning • A parallel service will emerge, so be ready to partner

  23. Show stoppers • Authority-responsibility-credibility of sponsor(s) out of sync • Power struggles among key higher-level administrators • No clear champion • No clear funding model

  24. As well as… • Fiscal crises and no indication of priorities • Faculty strongly against…technology, change, administration, each other • Strong mixed signals about teaching, technology and tenure

  25. Conclusions • Keep purpose aligned with primary teaching goals and active supporters of those goals • Play to your strengths; build from existing successes • Create expertise in Teaching with Technology everywhere • Think BIG, but start small

  26. Contact Information • Kathy Christoph christoph@doit.wisc.edu • Carrie Regenstein carrie@ats.rochester.edu • Ruth Sabean rsabean@ucla.edu

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