About

Guiding Aim

To promote a learning experience that is enriching, distinctive and challenging and addresses the needs and aspirations of students and staff at the University of Ulster.

The Centre provides:

  • leadership (new ideas, approaches and direction), drawing on national and international models, and providing a platform, with appropriate scholarly underpinning, to progress pedagogic initiatives;
  • support (advice, guidance, project funding), for academic and learning support staff to pursue enthusiasms and engage in practice that will enrich the learning experience for students;
  • opportunity (to participate in conversations and activities that address strategic priorities);
  • challenge (in addressing changing paradigms in higher education).

And, it maintains 'a watching brief' and responds to internal and external developments that impact on the learning environment.

One of the most significant developments in recent years, which provides 'a focus for initiatives in teaching and learning', has been the establishment of the Forum for Innovation in Teaching and Learning Support (2005). The Centre will build on work progressed by the Forum (now subsumed within the Centre) and will complement activities pursued by the Staff Development Unit.

Location and Personnel

The Centre is aligned with the Staff Development Unit. Staff within the unit have been involved in pedagogic initiatives, have informed the development of the Teaching and Learning Strategy, and make a significant contribution to academic practice across the institution. The Centre has a full-time Director, Professor Kate Greenan. Members of the Staff Development team take leading roles within the Centre. Other staff members will be associated with or seconded to the Centre, generally for short periods, to contribute to designated projects. To a certain degree, the composition of the Centre will therefore adapt as issues are progressed and new platforms of activity are created.

A Centre Advisory Group has been formed to monitor and review the Centre's performance and advise on developments as appropriate.

What are the priorities for the Centre?

  • To lead, support or otherwise contribute to the realisation of objectives in the Teaching and Learning Strategy.
  • To review relevant activity currently located in various units/groupings.
  • To facilitate conversations with and between faculties and departments.
  • To create conversation spaces for the pursuit of particular topics.
  • To embed the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).
  • To provide a focus for engagement with research and practice.
  • To maintain the strategic focus of the PgHEP.
  • To keep in touch with external developments (including links with the HEA/Subject Centres), drawing on, contributing to and disseminating as appropriate.