On the Horizon
What's ahead for 2024-2025
The Generative AI Guide to Assessment is really great! I'm not even all the way through it and I have already updated my syllabi. You did a great job, and I will absolutely return to it!
As the world continues to confront “multiple, compounding major crises that cut across society, health, the environment, technology and the economy” (Waterloo at 100: Global Futures), CTE is privileged to support the Waterloo instructors who are teaching within this evolving and challenging global context.
Much of our centre’s work in the new fiscal year will continue to be of the “co-” kind: co-leading, co-creating, co-hosting, and co-facilitating with other Waterloo academic support units, departments, and faculties. These activities include the following:
- We will continue to lead or co-lead institutional initiatives on issues and topics such as:
- generative AI (with CEL and the Standing Committee on New Technologies, Pedagogy, and Academic Integrity);
- accessibility (the Accessible Education Project);
- self-directed experiential learning frameworks (with the Teaching Innovation Incubator);
- the creation and delivery of instructor training for the new tech-enabled active learning classroom (with ITMS).
- We will continue to co-support other institutional initiatives such as:
- the assessment of teaching (with the Complementary Teaching Assessment Project);
- the piloting of educational technologies such as Creator+ and Vevox (with the Teaching Innovation Incubator and the EdTech Advisory Committee);
- We will co-host (with the Teaching Innovation Incubator) the second annual Instructional Innovations Week to highlight new and emerging practices and tools to support teaching excellence.
- We will continue our new partnership with Renison’s English Language Institute (ELI), providing the opportunity for PhD students enrolled in the Certificate in University Teaching to design and deliver guest lectures to ELI students.
- We will extend and expand our partnerships with other support units including Work-Integrated Learning (WIL), the Writing and Communication Centre (WCC), the Agile Development Team in the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL), and Campus Wellness.
- We will work with Chairs, Directors, and Teaching Fellows to increase the number of learning opportunities we provide to departments and faculties, such as lunch and learn sessions, teaching conversations, custom-workshops, and more.
- We will continue to work with the university community in our efforts to support Indigenization, decolonization, and anti-racism in teaching and learning.
- We will ensure that our programming addresses the needs of faculty members in Waterloo's new teaching stream.
Additionally, in terms of the professional development for our own staff, we will undertake to "rethink" how we do educational development by investigating emerging ideas that challenge conventional “best practices."
We look forward to supporting instructors and serving the university in the 2024-2025 fiscal year!
CTE contributed to the University's Teaching and Learning Spaces Committee to turn PHYS 235 from this traditional, lecture-oriented classroom into the more-engaging active-learning classroom pictured below.
