Teaching Innovation

The CTL supports and encourages faculty and teaching staff in the development of innovative, student-centered methodologies to enhance teaching and learning at TAMUQ. Support for teaching innovation is provided through various ways including:

Lunch n’ Learns

Join your colleagues over lunch to discuss books, journal articles, emerging topics, and lots more that explore best teaching and learning practices. Join conversations to build consensus on how evidence-based approaches can be adapted to our specific context at Texas A&M Qatar.

All faculty and academic staff are welcome. Readings and Lunch ‘n Learn timings will be sent out as calendar invites. Kindly respond to the calendar invites to support the organization of the event.

For information on past Lunch ‘n Learns or to make suggestions for future Lunch n’ Learn topics, please email us.

Ripple Effect

The Ripple Effect is a showcase event by faculty and academic staff members who have recently attended a teaching workshop, engaged in a scholarship of teaching and learning project, published a paper on pedagogy, presented at an educational conference, or simply wish to share their teaching successes with colleagues.

Past Ripple Effect faculty include Dr. Schuller, who shared his takeaways from a project-based learning workshop that he had attended, Dr. Hascakir, visiting from College Station, who talked about her teaching experience, and Dr. Al – Hamidi who shared his success in a Teaching Innovation talk on integrating project-based learning through design thinking in a sophomore course.

Instructional Consulting

Instructional consulting is the support provided to enhance the pedagogical practices of faculty and academic staff members through various means by the CTL’s Senior Instructional Consultant Dr. Frances Kalu. Instructional consultations take place through various means including:

• Individual or program meeting to identifying opportunities for innovation in your classroom as well as documenting your teaching practice, or identifying scholarship of teaching and learning topics for inquiry, amongst others.
• Developing measurable and easily implementable changes to create an active and collaborative learning environment.
• Identifying mechanisms to collect and interpret student feedback in your class.
• Creating and maintaining teaching portfolios
• Developing and enhancing the peer observation process and skills
• Developing or redesigning your course

Mid-Semester Feedback Session

Mid-semester feedback session is a formative feedback process that provides information on teaching and learning from the students in your class. Feedback received will inform teaching practices that enhance student learning in the class for the last half of the semester. The anonymous and confidential feedback sessions are facilitated by the Senior Instructional Consultant and take place during the last 15 – 20 minutes of class, within the first half of the semester.

During the session, the faculty member introduces the purpose of the session to students, encourages them to be candid and specific in their feedback and then exits class to maintain student anonymity. Students work individually through a Start/Stop/Continue* exercise. They then work in small groups to reach a consensus, agree on examples and the constructive feedback they provide.

Faculty will then receive a short, confidential report providing anonymized feedback from the students, a debrief session with the Senior Instructional Consultant, and resources if needed. A mid-term feedback session offers you the opportunity to go back to students to reinforce class learning goals while addressing their concerns.

* i) What helps you learn the most in this course?

ii) What improvement could be made to help you learn better in this course?

iii) What steps could you take to improve your own learning in this course? (questions can be modified to capture information unique to the course)

Faculty and academic staff will be sent an email each semester a week in advance of the mid-semester feedback session window. The request form can be found here.

Teaching Observation

Teaching observations provides an opportunity for a confidential classroom or lab visit by the Senior Instructional Consultant. Using a validated teaching tool, the consultant observes your class and note minute by minute happenings in the class. Using a strengths-based approach, strengths and opportunities for enhancement will be identified during the observation. A debrief session is organized based on the information collected, and materials shared by the instructor in advance of the class (syllabus, lecture notes, etc.). All observation notes and pertinent resources will be shared to support the enhancement of identified strengths or address opportunities.

If you would like to request a confidential and anonymous Teaching Observation kindly email Dr. Frances Kalu at frances.kalu@tamu.edu