Case study
About Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning (CITL), University of South Florida
University of South Florida is a Research University, located in the vibrant and diverse Tampa Bay region, dedicated to empowering students to maximize their potential for lifelong success. Founded in 1956, the University today serves more than 50,000 students and has almost 16,000 faculty. 40% of students are African American, American Indian, Asian, Hispanic, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, or multiracial. USF is the fastest-rising university in America, according to U.S. News and World Report's (U.S. News) 2022 Best Colleges rankings, having risen 67 spots among all universities and 48 spots among public universities, over the last ten years.
The Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning (CITL) at USF started working with OneHE in 2022. The USF CITL "has a singular mission: enhancing learning experiences. CITL is focused on strengthening classroom practices, providing pedagogy and technology training, and enriching the learning and teaching environment for all faculty."
What was the challenge?
The CITL in USF aimed to provide a sustainable and scalable system for supporting the professional development of teaching faculty, especially those that are new to teaching, that integrates and augments current support and provides flexibility in how and when faculty are supported. In this, the CITL wanted to create a sense of community and connectedness between educators committed to improving the quality of teaching, across USF's three campuses and 13 schools, and with colleagues in other institutions globally, also using OneHE.
How did OneHE change the game for Center for Innovative Teaching & Learning (CITL), University of South Florida?
1. Building connectedness and community
The CITL at USF wanted a way to create a sense of belonging and shared purpose among faculty with a passion for teaching and learning. That has been achieved by enabling USF faculty to join global cohorts of educators participating in OneHE’s courses and resources, and by OneHE and the CITL working together to create opportunities for USF faculty to benefit from local support.
OneHE values CTLs as hubs to reach faculty, to work in partnership with them.
2. Delivering local programs alongside OneHE
The CITL at USF has created local groups for participating faculty where they can come together, plan and share their implementation of good practice. A smaller cohort of relatively new educators take part in the Fundamentals in Teaching (FiT) program, where participants are provided with specific content from OneHE over a ten-week period, during which they are supported by monthly meetings provided by the CITL.
We’ve created local spaces so we can … foster local collaborations and local conversations.
3. A flipped model for professional development
The CITL at USF has taken advantage of OneHE’s content and asynchronous social learning to take a flipped approach to professional development. After completing materials in their own time, during which they can engage with the global community of thought leaders and fellow educators, USF’s faculty meet to come up with practical solutions to institutional challenges and focus on implementation.
Their conversations have been really remarkable…
Where next for your partnership with OneHE?
USF's CITL now plans to make use of OneHE to provide support for adjunct faculty who are often less well resourced in institutions. OneHE allow adjunct faculty to engage with faculty development at a time and place that suits them, and to carry on the conversation with colleagues about adoption of good practice. The CITL sees this as a value add that will help attract the best academic talent.
OneHE gives us an opportunity to think about how we can provide support to these faculty… that they can engage with in their own time.
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