CATT News & Updates

As preparation for winter courses comes into full effect, as an instructor, you want to consider: Why are students signed up for your course? What are students hoping to get out of the course? What skills or information do you want your students to obtain?

The temperatures are dipping, we have not seen sunlight in three weeks, and the Bills continue to play with our emotions, which can only mean the end of another fall semester has arrived. With it, of course, thoughts begin to turn toward holiday meals, the beginnings of a festive mindset, and the cheery prospect of course evaluations opening.

A confession: despite the title, I don’t really love course evaluations. If two years of answering emails for the campus-wide course evaluations system has taught me anything, it is that I am not alone. They can be a source of enormous stress, a confusing labyrinth of ever-changing user interfaces and new tools that muddy the quest for clear answers.

As educators we are well aware of the many delays in bringing theory to practice. Whether it is through delayed pedagogical recommendations in adjusting campus learning spaces, conceptual challenges encountered in effectively leveraging distance and remote learning opportunities, or in identifying creative ways of providing students with the course experiences sufficient to actively construct and add meaning to their own learning, we are constantly dealing with the overarching problem of delayed practical application of theory.

A perennial problem that we, in the assessment world, grapple with involves understanding the full impact of the physical space on learners and instructors.

In our Director’s previous blog post, Carol Van Zile-Tamsen introduced our friends and partners to the enhanced structure of the Office of Curriculum, Assessment and Teaching Transformation. Through the merger of CEI and OEE Carol explained what—in its broadest sense—it is that we are trying to achieve in relation to supporting the University’s needs.