The central responsibility areas of the CTL are:
Annual writing retreats
The CTL facilitates two writing retreats per annum, one in May and one in November. The writing retreats serve two purposes; they provide a space for previous Finlo recipients to turn their completed research projects into publishable research papers and for potential Finlo recipients to complete research proposals.
Assessment short course
The Assessment short course is a semester-long SU short course aligned to the revised Assessment Policy (2022), supporting assessment that promotes student learning. During the short course, participants work through a facilitated process of thinking and deliberating, evaluating, and formulating the assessment strategies for their own modules, with a view of enabling them to design assessments that are learning centred (SU Teaching & Learning Policy, 2018) and support a transformative student experience (SU Vision 2040 and Strategic Framework 2019-2024).
Auxins
This is a programme of monthly lunchtime sessions aimed at creating opportunities for academics to examine and deepen their knowledge about topics of own interest in the arena of teaching and learning at SU.
CHEC regional short courses
This is a collaborative programme involving all the universities in the region and co-facilitated and in some cases convened by CTL staff members. This programme is open to all SU staff.
Faculty-based work of advisors
The nature of the service that each advisor provides to faculties, differs from one faculty to another, and is negotiated in consultation with the deputy dean T-L-E (or equivalent) in each faculty. One point of commonality across this faculty-based work, however, is the establishing of T-L-E hubs in faculties. The faculty T-L-E hub is an important mechanism to promote good teaching and to create a critical mass of academics with a particular focus on the issue of T-L-E. It has a central focus on teaching that generates interest, energy, guidance and leadership. The T-L-E hub takes on various forms, depending on the context of the particular faculty. The T-L-E hubs initiate, coordinate and promote regular activities that foster interest and faculty development in scholarly teaching.
Fellowship Scheme
The Fellowship scheme provides the opportunity for excellent teachers and scholars of teaching and learning to spend more consistent periods of time, with various forms of support, to focus on aspects of renewal, exploration and dissemination of good practice within Departments and Faculties.
Fund for Innovation and Research in Learning and Teaching (Finlo)
This is a centrally administered system, co-ordinated by the CTL, to provide seed funding for small-scale classroom-based research and innovation.
Institutional policy development and interpretation in relation to teaching and learning:
The CTL plays a core role in the development and interpretation of all SU policies that relate to Teaching and Learning. Towards this end the CTL also convenes and participates in a number of institutional committees as well as task teams.
Peer-to-Peer Facilitation of Learning Short Course (Tutorship):
This is an institutional standardised training short course that can be accessed by all peer facilitators who have been formally appointed by faculties across the university. This course may be used to supplement any training that already exists in faculties or may be used to formally train peer facilitators for faculties. This is a fully online training short course. The course is registered and approved as a co-curriculum offering at SU.
Post Graduate Diploma (Higher Education – Teaching and Learning)
This is a diploma programme open to all SU staff wishing to further their studies in the area of higher education teaching and learning. It is collaboratively facilitated regionally, and the CTL convenes one of the modules.
Professional Educational Development for Academics (PREDAC):
This is a semester-long professional development programme for new academics, co-ordinated by the CTL.
Research Projects
The CTL is involved in a number of research projects relating to higher education teaching and learning. One such project is publication written by professional academic support staff and teaching academics at Stellenbosch University who experienced educational challenges and opportunities during the first semester of the COVID-19 period: Responding to the necessity for change: HE voices from the South during the COVID-19 crisis.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Conference (SoTL)
This is an annual in-house Teaching and Learning conference, including a full day of pre-conference Teaching and Learning workshops, co-ordinated by the CTL.
Scholarship of Educational Leadership short courseIn the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) short course you will learn about refining your research question, consulting literature, using educational theory as a lens, designing an appropriate methodology to gather and interpret data and translating this into a clear and comprehensive proposal that adheres to Stellenbosch University's (SU’s) ethical principles and institutional permission principles.
Scholarship of Educational Leadership Short CourseThe objectives and outcomes of the SoEL short course include:
To engage educational leaders (e.g. vice-deans of teaching and learning, programme leaders, departmental Chairs, lecturers, heads and staff of units for teaching and learning and for professional academic support services, etc.) in scholarly approaches to educational leadership practices;
To introduce educational leaders to the scholarship of educational leadership (SoEL) literature and its implications for their own educational leadership context;
To apply SoEL research skills to one's own educational leadership context (such as reviewing literature, formulating SoEL research problems, designing research methods, disseminating results);
To demonstrate critically reflective practice on educational leadership in the form of a mini-portfolio.
Student feedback system
This is a centrally-administered system to evaluate aspects of teaching and learning at the module and programme level, co-ordinated by the CTL. The CTL remains responsible for the administration of this system, maintenance of the student feedback questionnaires, processing and storage of the data, as well as the compilation and distribution of student feedback reports to faculties.
