Goal 4: Elevate how we teach

Purpose

In response to a changing world — and an evolving teaching and learning landscape — the time is right for UCLA to modernize its instructional practices to stay at the forefront of excellence in education. Leveraging expertise and motivation, UCLA is well positioned to advance inclusive teaching practices by strengthening programs that support and incentivize continuous improvement and innovation in instruction, making intentional, research-informed, and equity affirming changes to our teaching and learning enterprise, and re-envisioning how we evaluate and celebrate teaching excellence.

First-year priorities

Some of the near-term priorities for this goal include: 

• Continue implementation of ATLAS recommendations and establish the Teaching and Learning Center
• Promote a culture of inclusive excellence in teaching by embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion throughout all practices, programs, and initiatives
• Implement professional learning experiences for instructors that support the learning needs and reflect the diverse lived experiences of all UCLA students 
• Support adoption of inclusive teaching practices and the enabling educational technologies for courses taught in all instructional modalities (online, hybrid, on campus)
• Foster collaborations with instructional designers to ensure instructors embrace accessibility and effective use of technology as key course design principles
• Create a comprehensive teaching onboarding program for all instructors
• Enhance training and resources for graduate student teaching assistants
• Expand the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching (HET) initiative
• Restructure reward system to recognize and reward inclusive excellence in teaching
• Revise the Academic Personnel Manual to reflect the use of evidence-based teaching practices as critical to the pursuit of teaching excellence
• Build a strong Information Technology and virtual support structure for teaching and learning
• Engage the Academic Senate in disseminating online course approval procedures to instructors and departments engaged in online course and program development

Expected Outcomes

Elevating how we teach will: 

• better prepare, support and evaluate instructors;
• enhance the training and mentoring of graduate students as teaching assistants;
• improve and assure equity in student learning outcomes;
• brand UCLA as a leader and innovator in education; and
• build the perceived value of a college education to the public.

Measures of success

Ways that we will define progress against this goal include: 

• Recognition of new Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) as a hub of expertise in effective, student-centered, and inclusive teaching practices, pedagogical research, and instructional innovation
• Increase in the number of instructors who redesign courses in ways evidenced to improve learning and equity in instruction
• Entire departments and academic programs transforming their curriculum to promote coherence and positively impact student success
• Greater awareness, knowledge, and widespread adoption of inclusive teaching practices
• Creation of incentives, acknowledgement, and rewards for teaching excellence
• Modernized learning spaces and an ecosystem of educational technology tools that improve accessibility and student engagement in the learning process

Implementation Committees

Subcommittee #1: Evaluation of the Teaching Process

Melissa Paquette-Smith, Psychology (Chair)

Robert Gould, Statistics

Adrienne Lavine, Engineering

Marc Levis-Fitzgerald, TLC

Glory Tobiason, TLC

Committee Support Analyst: Anita Han, TLC

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Subcommittee #2: Innovating Instructional Practice

Muriel McClendon, History (Chair)

Anya Booker, Arts & Architecture

Sylvia Hurtado, Education

Rachel Kennison, CEILS

Ted Robles, Psychology

Committee Support Analyst: Marjorie Llanera & Milinda Tabarez, TLC

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Subcommittee #3: Modernizing Learning Spaces

Joe Way, ITS (Chair)

Allison Benedetti, Library

Kim DeBacco, TLC

Chris Dutton, TLC

Jeff Maloy, Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology/LS Core

Michael Samojlik, Anderson

Committee Support Analyst: Lucia Tabarez & Candice Thomas, TLC

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Subcommittee #4: Diversifying Modalities of Instruction

Debra Pires, Life Sciences (Chair)

Ava Arndt, TLC

Ilana Intonato, ITS

Kate Jakway Kelly, Registrar

Travis Lee, Disabilities & Computing Program

Kerry Schutt Nason, TFT

Committee Support Analyst: Serge Chenkerian, TLC

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Implementation Planning Group

Co-lead: Adriana Galván, Dean, Undergraduate Education 

Co-lead: Erin Sanders O’Leary, Inaugural Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning

Eliza Aiken, UCLA Student

Anya Booker, Associate Dean and Executive Director for Anti-Racism, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture  

Allison Benedetti, Director, UCLA Arts, Music and Powell Libraries

Caroline Kong, Instructional Designer and Technologist, UCLA Teaching and Learning Center 

Jamal Madni, UCLA Alumnus

Cecilia Rios Aguilar, Professor and Associate Dean, UCLA School of Education & Information Studies 

Ted Robles, Professor and Vice Chair of Graduate Studies 

Shanna Shaked, Senior Associate Director, UCLA Center for Education Innovation & Learning in the Sciences

Eileen Strempel, Inaugural Dean, UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music  

Glory Tobiason, Research Scientist, UCLA CRESST