Teaching Innovation
The CTL supports and encourages faculty and teaching staff in the development of innovative, student-centered methodologies to improve learning.
Lunch n’ Learns
Join your colleagues over lunch to discuss books, chapters and journal articles that explore best teaching and learning practices. Build consensus on how evidence-based approaches can be adopted to our specific context at Texas A&M Qatar.
All faculty are welcome. Readings and the times of the Lunch ‘n Learns will be sent out as calendar invites. Please respond to the calendar invites in order to minimize food wastage.
For copies of past Lunch ‘n Learn selections or to make suggestions for future Lunch n’ Learns, please email us.
Ripple Effect
The Ripple Effect is a recurring series of informal conversations with faculty who have recently attended a teaching workshop, 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, and Dr. Hascakir, visiting from College Station, who talked about her teaching experience.
Request a Mid-term Feedback Session
Mid-term feedback sessions provide you with feedback from your students. These sessions typically take place before the last half of the semester and are run by the Instructional Consultant during the last 20 – 25 minutes of class. 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, in small groups, work through a Start/Stop/Continue* exercise. They must, as a group, agree on the examples and constructive feedback they provide.
Faculty will then receive a short, confidential memo providing anonymized feedback from the students. A mid-term feedback session offers you the opportunity to go back to students to reinforce class learning goals while addressing their concerns.
* What should continue happening in this class?
What should stop happening/what is obstructing your learning?
What ideas do you have for this course/what should start happening?
Faculty are sent an email each semester about a week in advance of when the window for mid-term feedback sessions opens. The request form can be found here.
Request a Class Observation
If you would like someone from the CTL to visit your class for a confidential, informal observation, please contact us. The observer will note minute by minute happenings in the class. Based on this raw data, materials shared by the instructor in advance of the class (syllabus, notes, etc.) and the pre-meeting between the instructor and the observer, the faculty member will receive a post-observation document that they may use to make changes in their practice.
Instructional Consulting
Dr. Frances Kalu is the CTL’s Senior Instructional Consultant. Aside from developing and implementing teaching-related workshops, lectures, and events, the Instructional Consultant can also assist with
― Identifying opportunities for innovation in your classroom as well how to document your teaching practice for possible research use
― 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