The Role of Centers for Teaching and Learning in Improvement of Undergraduate Engineering Education

Many higher education institutions have a Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) whose mission is to advance teaching excellence, foster innovation, and translate educational research into practice. However, those centers are often underutilized by the faculty and schools they serve. Most centers have a core group of faculty who participate regularly; however, the majority of faculty members are not involved in center activities. This report will detail the findings from an NSF-funded project titled The Role of Centers for Teaching and Learning in Improvement of Undergraduate Engineering Education. The two-day CTL/Engineering Education workshop brought together CTL directors, engineering faculty, and engineering school administrators. The workshop agenda was to outline strategies for enhancing partnerships between CTLs and schools of engineering to improve undergraduate engineering education. The following report will introduce the context and goals of the workshop; highlight findings of a pre-workshop survey of CTL professionals; present an overview of the workshop discussion strands; discuss insights and strategies gained from the workshop; and present recommendations for CTLs, engineering faculty, and engineering administrators. Introduction: Context and Project Goals The primary mission of the CTLs is to advance teaching excellence at their institutions while supporting faculty through a collaborative approach. The CTLs offer a wide array of programs, events, and services that foster innovation and translation of educational research into practice. However, schools of engineering often do not draw upon the expertise of the CTL staff and their knowledge of learning theory; perhaps because engineering faculty are disciplinary experts first, and may not see the value in professional development activities that are not tied to their content (American Society for Engineering Education, 2009). Partnerships between CTLs and schools of engineering could have more impact if they focus on developing opportunities that begin with analysis of teaching challenges and focus on content (Layne, Froyd, Simpson, Caso, & Merton, 2004). In addition, CTLs can facilitate reflective conversations about how people learn (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000), learning outcomes, and how to develop and assess students with respect to those outcomes. Furthermore, some CTLs are focused on helping faculty transition from effective teaching to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and recently NSF sponsored two Webinars, “Advancing the Levels of Inquiry in Teaching and Learning: Considerations in Moving from Effective Teacher to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).” There are a few articles focused on advancing the levels of inquiry in engineering 1 Funded by the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation, Award Number is DUE0958168.