Yale Center for Teaching and Learning

Teaching Development and Initiatives Staff

The Teaching Development and Initiatives (TDI) team at Yale’s Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning collaborates with faculty, postdocs, and graduate students of all backgrounds and abilities to develop practices that promote equitable and engaged teaching. We recognize that University teaching happens within the context of the institution and the broader world, so we strategize with instructors to address the contemporary moment in creating classrooms that value diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Because teaching can sometimes feel like an isolated endeavor, the TDI team strives to create spaces for discussion of and reflection about pedagogy across Yale. In partnership with individual faculty, departments, and schools, we engage in conversations about teaching and learning, grounded in educational scholarship.

It is our mission to maintain knowledge of developments in learning. The TDI team is part of the field of educational development, which “enhances teaching and learning capacity and advocates for the quality of the student learning experience” (Taylor and Colet 2010). TDI team members are scholars in their own discipline and leaders in the field of educational development, which has disciplinary grounding in the fields of cognitive and developmental psychology, curriculum and instructional theory, diversity and inclusion, and assessment and evaluation. We help faculty translate that research knowledge into usable teaching strategies through a number of avenues, ranging from one-on-one consultations, departmental collaborations, semester-long learning communities, academic year reading seminars, and workshops on a diverse range of topics. Our programming centers faculty voice in conversation with each other as we collaboratively explore the most imperative pedagogical concerns higher education faces. 

Research shows that the most effective development initiatives are the ones that come from the faculty themselves. Therefore, we strive to help faculty connect their research inquiry with elements of their teaching, knowing that attention to one can make the other stronger as well. We are committed to engaging with individuals, departments, and schools as they pursue questions about teaching and learning that relate to their individual experiences and identities and/or their collective work as instructors.

With every individual consultation we engage, workshop we facilitate, and learning community we organize, we are steeped in the scholarship that forms the foundation of our work. Our job is to understand our University’s many cultures, to make teaching and learning research available to educators, and to help them adapt it to their student and community needs. Please be in touch at faculty.teaching@yale.edu or askpoorvucenter@yale.edu

Reference

Taylor, Lynn K. and Colet, Nicole Rege. “Making the Shift from Faculty Development to Educational Development: A Conceptual Framework Grounded in Practice.”  Building Teaching Capacities in Higher Education: A Comprehensive International Model, Edited by Alenoush Saroyan and Mariane Frenay, Stylus Publishing, 2010, 139-167.

 

Associate Director Faculty Teaching Initiatives
joshua.abreu@yale.edu
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Associate Director, Teaching Development and Initiatives
gina.hurley@yale.edu
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Senior Administrative Assistant
kimberly.kuzina@yale.edu
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Director, Teaching Development and Initiatives
julie.mcgurk@yale.edu
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Assistant Director, Teaching Development and Initiatives
malia.piper@yale.edu
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Associate Director, Teaching Development and Initiatives
melissa.scheve@yale.edu
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Educational Developer & Accessibility Specialist
amanda.valdespino@yale.edu
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