Teaching and learning center

Teaching and learning centers are independent academic units within colleges and universities that exist to provide support services for faculty, to help teaching faculty to improve their teaching and professional development. They may also provide learning support services for students, and other services, depending on the individual institution. These centers may have different kinds of names, such as faculty development centers, teaching and learning centers, centers for teaching and learning, centers for teaching excellence, academic support centers, and others.

University professors, part-time instructors, or teaching assistants approach teaching as experts in their field and know their contents. However, that does not guarantee success in teaching, as teaching expertise is an altogether different matter. Many instructors have not been trained in teaching methods, and may have difficulties conveying contents and concepts to students, who are relative novices. Novice students approach the information and contents in a course in a much different way than expert teachers, and teachers may not understand the conceptual divide between them and their students. Novice students may perceive the contents of lectures and textbooks as large amounts of information, rather than as meaningful concepts, in contrast to experts, who can naturally see the materials as coherent and meaningful, due to years of mastery. Those who rely on traditional teacher-centered methods such as pure lecture may inadvertently subject students to an information dump, or fail to connect with students at a conceptual level, leaving students unable to learn or retain information in a meaningful manner.

Teaching and learning centers exist to help instructors to modernize their teaching style, to scaffold concepts and information in a way that students can meaningfully take in, and to help students learn more deeply and retain what they have learned. As such, these centers assume roles as educational change agents. Such centers also attempt to help instructors with other problems that they might have, such as managing graduate students, designing courses, technical writing, trying novel teaching methods, and designing better assignments and exams. Some centers may address learning difficulties at the students' end, by providing support services for better learning and study skills. Some centers may also be involved in e-learning and similar movements.

Teaching and learning centers typically offer professional development services for faculty, particularly to help them improve their teaching and professional careers. Depending on the institution, these may be optional for professors, or required for new professors or those facing difficulties in teaching performance. Some universities in the American system may require graduate teaching assistants who teach university courses to participate in training or coaching programs. Such centers also work to promote more modern teaching methods, discussion, and institutional changes in teaching practices and in the academic environment.

...
Wikipedia