Looking forward always entails looking back, which is why we at CTE are committed to continuous improvement founded on critical reflection and evidence. A year has passed since we produced our first annual report as part of our comprehensive plan to assess the work of the Centre. I am happy to announce the publication of this year’s annual report, which builds on the hard work of my colleagues to develop and engage in the assessment practices we know to be so important to the evaluation and ongoing development of the work that we do.
Numbers certainly don’t tell the whole story, but I want to share a few with you as a window into what we’ve been up to at CTE over the past year. Here are some highlights of our 2015-2016 year:
- Our 2016 Teaching and Learning Conference, Learning from Failure and Challenge, attracted 260 participants, 96% of whom rated the conference as “good” or “excellent”
- CTE staff provided 5,055 consultations to 1,172 instructors and delivered 226 workshops to 1,019 unique instructors, graduate students, and staff members
- 18 postdoctoral fellows attended our Teaching Development Seminars, bringing the total of fellows who have taken the seminars to 165
- 480 graduate students participated in 129 microteaching sessions, 1,674 attended workshops, 163 completed the Fundamentals of University Teaching program, and 18 completed the Certificate in University Teaching program
- CTE’s online resources—our Teaching Tips in particular—were accessed more than one million times from locations around the world
CTE staff have also made strides in promoting teaching excellence beyond the University of Waterloo. Thirty-eight presentations were given by our staff members at conferences and other institutions, four articles and one book chapter written by our staff members appeared in peer-reviewed publications, and CTE staff received two research grants to conduct educational research.
We are already engaged in continuing the process of assessment and reflection for the 2016-2017 year. In the winter of 2017, we will prepare a self-study as part of CTE’s External Review, a process that will provide us with new insights into the work that we do in support of our mission: collaborating with individuals, academic departments, and academic support units to foster capacity and community around teaching and to promote an institutional culture that values effective teaching and meaningful learning.
There is so much more to say, but rather than dive deeper here, I encourage you to read the 2015-2016 annual report to get a more comprehensive sense of CTE’s story. My colleagues and I are already looking forward to a year of new achievements at CTE.