| The Colorado College
Crown-Tapper Teaching and Learning Center The Colorado College is a private liberal arts college at the foot of Pikes Peak, with about 150 full-time faculty and approximately 1900 undergraduate students. The Teaching and Learning Center, created through gifts of the Crown-Tapper family and Edith Gaylord Harper, opened in the fall of 1996. It seeks to reinforce the central mission of the college, which is the education of undergraduates. The director is recruited from full-time faculty on a yearly basis, and his/her teaching load is diminished to compensate for TLC administrative duties. The director reports to the Dean of the College and looks to a Steering Committee of faculty and administrators for additional advice. A full-time paraprofessional oversees day-to-day operation, provides technical consultation, and coordinates the program. The center's annual budget, supported by the Gaylord grant, is $70,000. The main goal of the TLC is to assist faculty achieve teaching excellence. To this end, it offers the following programs: Luncheon Series: the TLC hosts a monthly luncheon program with discussions lead by faculty members and centered on teaching and pedagogy issues. These are meant to foster critical thinking of classroom technique, offer new approaches, and create open dialogue and conversation across the campus about what happens in the classroom. Adjacent to this program, the TLC also hosts a monthly luncheon series focused on first year faculty; this series addresses issues specific to new faculty members. New Faculty Workshop: this workshop runs for five days during the last week of Winter Break; it utilizes "microteaching" techniques to recreate teaching environments and foster peer review. Senior staff supervise and offer advice. Development Blocks: because Colorado College operates on a system where faculty teach one course at a time for three and a half weeks, development release time is distributed according to "blocks off." Starting in 1997-1998, the TLC offers two development blocks per year earmarked for teaching development. Technology Honoraria: these are for faculty pursuing new uses of technology in the classroom. These are meant to encourage the integration of information technology into the classroom, and the guidelines encourage experimental usage. Workshops and Seminars: the TLC brings in visiting specialists for workshops and seminars on subjects such as collaborative teaching/learning, technology in the classroom, and learning styles. Intra-college resources are also tapped. Computer Workshops: the TLC hosts an ongoing series of workshops on computer applications and information literacy, including research on the web, Web publishing, new e-mail clients, Microsoft Office, and Windows 95. These are administered by the Academic Technical Specialists and the Academic Librarians. Resources: the TLC also provides a wide range of teaching resources that are always available for use, including a high-quality computer lab, a "smart" classroom, and an ongoing collection of books and articles centered on teaching, learning, and technology. Many of these books are reviewed by faculty or distributed to faculty upon request. |