Initiatives

Our centre strives to develop the professional capacity of VIU employees through four major initiatives:

Professional Networks and Communities of Practice

The VIU Teaching and Learning Centre promotes professional networks and communities of practice because they foster continual professional growth and lifelong learning, enable scholarly activity within the institution, and develop professional connections with other institutions and organizations.

To promote professional networks and communities of practice, the VIU Teaching and Learning Centre team stirves to lead, contribute to and implement activities that foster peer collaboration and networking within and outside our institution. Some of our initiatives therefore include:

• Hosting and supporting reading circles,
• Holding professional development workshops, and
• Collaborating with other internal and external institutions and agencies.

To learn more about how you can become a part of a professional network, please visit the links above or contact us.

Collaborations:

Our centre collaborates with several different organizations and agencies, including:

• Academic Computing Steering Committee
• CUPE Training and Development Committee - Collaborative Cluster Committee (representing those providing professional development at VIU)
• Liaison with the VIU Research and Scholarly Activity Office
• BC Campus Educational Technology and Users Group - ETUG
• VIU Commons Committee
• VIU instructional and service departments
• MFA Professoinal Development Committees
• BCGEU Professional Development Committees
• UCIPD (University, College, Institute Professional Developers of British Columbia) Research and Scholarly Activity Office
• Communities of Practice - Ettienne Wenger
• Chairs and Coordinators Institute
• Documentation Committee - (Library, Information Technology and VIU Teaching and Learning Centre)
• Society of Vocatoinal Instructors

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

For a comprehensive list of resources about the scholarship of teaching and learning

• Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Resources

  
  

The VIU Teaching and Learning Centre team believes that investing in the scholarship of teaching and learning will provide staff and faculty with substantive evidence of key elements supporting student learning, enabling everyone in the VIU community to make evidence-based decisions to modify their teaching and learning processes where needed.

Incorporating on-going scholarly investigations, including research on educational technologies, will enable VIU to learn from curricular innovation and integrate technology seamlessly. The VIU Teaching and Learning Centre therefore strives to provide professional development opportunities, scholarly activities and mentorship that encourage faculty to produce scholarly work on teaching and learning based on clear goals, adequate preparation and appropriate methods. The goal of such scholarly work is to produce significant results that can be communicated effectively and generate reflective critique.

Some of our centre's initiatives therefore include:

• Teaching Scholars,
• Peer Exchange (mentoring),
• International Speakers,
• Internationalizing the Curriculum’ Institutes (International Programs),
• Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Campus Program,
• Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, and
• Reasearch of pedagogical uses of educational technologies.

Teaching and Learning Processes

For a comprehensive list of resources about teaching and learning processes:

• Teaching and Learning Resources

One of the four key initiatives at the VIU Teaching and Learning Centre is to enhance teaching and learning processes that:

• contribute to student retention,
• facilitate capacity building within our educational community,
• promote recruitment of quality professionals, and
• provoke dynamic curriculum development.

To accomplish this ongoing development in teaching and learning, our centre strives to:

• understand the teaching and learning needs at VIU,
• develop and implement relevant professional development,
• support institutional strategic plans related to teaching and learning environments,
• contribute to committees engaged in enhancing teaching and learning activity, and
• participate in collegial activity to further teaching and learning processes.

Some of our projects related to this initiative include:

• Faculty and staff professional development surveys;
• Institutional orientations for new employees (with Human Resources);
• Teaching Matters workshops sharing effective teaching practices;
• Teaching Commons discussions;
• Open Door Week;
• Instructional Skills workshops;
• Internationalizing the Curriculum workshops, consultation and institute;
• VIU Employee Technology Centre;
• Departmental, disciplinary and one-to-one consultations

Educational and Workplace Technologies

For a comprehensive list of resources about educational and workplace technologies:

• Teaching with Technology Resources

• Technology Users Group

• Another key initiative of the VIU Teaching and Learning Centre is to develop educational and workplace technologies and skills to help staff and faculty better meet the learning needs of students.

  Adopting and effectively utilizing technology that meaningfully contributes to VIU's learning environment can be challenging given the variety of technologies used in higher education as well as their pace of development. Our centre therefore strives to help staff and faculty effectively implement appropriate technologies in the workplace and classroom by providing such services as:

  • Consultations and just-in-time assistance,
  • Project-based workshops,
  • Scheduled teaching and learning with technology workshops,
  • Online and printed instructional resources, and
  • Faculty and staff professional development plans and ePortfolios.

  Please feel free to learn more about these initiatives by following the above links.