Building on fifty years of outstanding teaching in a unique, interactive learning environment, Trent University has announced the creation of the Trent Centre for Teaching and Learning, a new hub of creative thought and activity around issues of radical pedagogy, interactive development of courses, as well as innovative uses of technology.
“As post-secondary education enters the frontier of 21st century responsive learning, Trent is poised to play a leading role redefining what it means to teach and learn,” said Dr. Leo Groarke, president and vice-chancellor of Trent University. “It’s a time of dramatic change. The new Trent Centre for Teaching and Learning will help fulfill the University’s commitment to interactive teaching for the next fifty years and beyond.”
Through the new Centre for Teaching and Learning, Trent University will foster leading-edge teaching innovations, facilitate research on teaching and learning, and will support faculty in providing personalized, collaborative and productive learning spaces for students. Within the suite of services offered through the centre, faculty, students and staff who exemplify Trent’s leadership in teaching excellence and learning innovations will also be featured.
“The Centre for Teaching and Learning aims to promote deep discussion about teaching across the wide range of instructors, faculty, staff and students at Trent,” said Dr. Elaine Scharfe, interim vice-provost and dean of Graduate Studies. At an event held earlier today to celebrate the official opening of the centre in its new home in Trent’s Bata Library, Professor Scharfe also announced the appointment of award-winning professor Dr. Cathy Bruce, a founding member of Trent’s School of Education and Professional Learning, as the director of the new centre.
“At Trent, we have always prepared students for their futures, with a focus on engagement, critical thinking skills, collaboration, and experiential learning as philosophical and practical imperatives. Our students are engaged. But the demands of teaching and our learners have changed. Gone are the days of knowledge transfer, controlled information and one-size-fits-all learning in traditional classrooms,” said Professor Bruce. “Our students today and in the future, need dynamic learning spaces that enable the co-construction of knowledge and creativity with a wide range of learning tools and technologies that are customized to the learner. At Trent we don’t just want to ‘keep up with change’ we consider ourselves a collective agent of change itself. This means that in order to stay at the front edge, we need to construct responsive and collaborative learning environment like our new Centre for Teaching and Learning.”
Joining Dr. Bruce at the Centre for Teaching and Learning are several newly appointed staff, including: educational developer Robyne Hanley, instructor in the Department of Psychology and former AODA coordinator; teaching awards coordinator Adam Guzkowski; and Laurie Collette as administrative assistant.
For more information about the Centre for Teaching and Learning visit www.trentu.ca/teaching
Posted on Wednesday, November 5, 2014.