Teaching Support Center (CAPE)

CUSTOMIZED

Each teaching situation has its own distinctive features and so pedagogical strategies must always be tailored to match the context. We work with teachers and teaching teams on a one-to-one basis in order to understand their context and to help them generate possibilities which are realistic and constructive, given their content, their goals and their constraints.

TEACHER-CENTRED

As the person who knows both the content being taught and the students in a course, the teacher is typically the person best placed to make professional judgements about how to teach.  Since the teacher is the one who will have to implement any changes, no solution will work unless the teacher believes in it. We see teachers as the drivers of teaching improvement, and we work with teachers to support them in making the best professional judgements.

CONFIDENTIAL

We work with teachers on a confidential basis. The data we collect and reports we prepare are provided to the teacher and are not shared with anyone else unless agreed with the teacher.

EVIDENCE-INFORMED

We review international research on teaching and learning engineering and science and this serves as the basis for our work. This means teachers are provided with a solid foundation which they can use when forming their professional judgements.

DATA-DRIVEN

The first step to improving teaching is often to understand the context better. We work with teachers to collect data from student feedback questionnaires, classroom observations and reviews of course materials. This provides teachers with a strong foundation for making pedagogical judgements.

QUALITY-FOCUSED

Every teacher can improve their courses and their teaching. We offer pedagogical support both to teachers that are experiencing problems with a course, and to those who find courses are going well but who would nonetheless like to innovate or improve.