Teaching Innovation Institute

CELT's Teaching Innovation Institute is a responsive, interdisciplinary learning community that addresses emergent issues in higher education. Using a cohort model, the Institute draws faculty from across the disciplines into conversation and collaboration to address opportunities and challenges in higher education. The Institute encourages reflection, inquiry, imagination, and an opportunity to think broadly about how to intentionally invite all students into the learning process.

Participants work collectively across two semesters to research, experience, and reflect on strategies for teaching and learning rooted loosely in theoretical underpinnings of critical digital pedagogies pedagogies. These experiences prioritize a renegotiation of roles and responsibilities of teacher and student in ways that inspire both to be curious and active and encourages participants to approach their work with a sense of curiosity, collaboration, and play. The Institute is open to full-time faculty with regular teaching responsibilities.

101 faculty

participants since 2020

17 colleges

& 57 depts/schools represented among faculty participants

5 cohorts

since the Institute's launch in 2020

2024-2025 TII Cohort to Focus on Generative AI

The fifth cohort of the CELT Teaching Innovation Institute—its largest yet—will focus generative artificial intelligence (AI) in teaching, learning and higher education. We now consider a widening spectrum of generative AI technologies that are increasingly integrated into software suites and other digital tools. They have become much more sophisticated while many limitations and concerns persist. The discourse on generative AI is energetic but also challenging for its mix of speculation and specialized knowledge, as well as a range of competing goals and agendas.

Since January 2023, CELT has hosted trainings, workshops, presentations, and other events on AI in teaching and learning (~70 as of summer 2024). We continue to consult individually with instructors, staff and students on the technical, ethical and rhetorical dimensions of this emergent and disruptive technology both at a high level as well as in specific disciplinary contexts. And, we anticipate the launch of two proposed badge programs on AI in teaching and learning for the Fall 2024 semester.

We are excited to announce the 2024-25 Teaching Innovation Institute faculty and look forward to learning alongside them as our leadership and support for generative AI in higher education evolves along with the technologies themselves.

2020 TII Cohort Featured in "Greater Faculties"

This issue of CELT's Greater Faculties: A Review of Teaching and Learning features a series of 'flash essays' written by 2020 Teaching Innovation Institute faculty participants to document their experiences and to share their innovations. The essays are organized into four sections. The first, “Digital Assignments for Real-World Application,” centers on the idea of using digital technologies to facilitate assignments that require students to apply their content knowledge to real-world problems. The second section, “Increasing Access and Interaction,” explores instructional additions that sought to increase student access to challenging or complex concepts. Section three, “Cloud-based Applications for Collaborative Learning,” offers suggestions for facilitating small group assignments, feedback exchange, conversations, and brainstorming. The fourth section, “Instruction in Different Modalities,” takes a broader view of teaching during uncertain times and examines the state of teaching in increasingly digital and augmented learning environments. View the issue here.