UCL Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT)

Reporting to Professor Anthony Smith, Vice-Provost (Education), CALT provides an outstanding pedagogic support service to UCL's faculties and departments that will enable them to:

• Plan and implement strategic educational and culture change effectively in their areas with a positive impact on the student learning experience
• Maximise the benefits from a research-led/research-embedded approach to teaching and learning
• Develop and embed evidence-based teaching and learning strategies and programmes in line with UCL's strategic objectives
• Professionalise and enhance their teaching and learning practice in alignment with UK professional standards and with UCL's own aspirations
• Identify, recognise and share their own effective teaching and learning practice and learn from that of others
• Collaborate in projects that are grounded in the UCL context and both benefit from and seek to develop the scholarship of teaching and learning

Our role is to champion, enable, inspire and promote effective practice in teaching and learning and to provide opportunities for excellence in this area to be recognised, rewarded and shared across UCL for maximum benefit. We will seek out opportunities to influence debate on policy and practice within UCL and, where appropriate, nationally. We will work with UCL academics on projects to enhance UCL's practice and keep it at the leading edge nationally and internationally.

Our vision is that CALT will be recognised as an outstanding and invaluable professional resource at UCL and a key agent of change in ensuring that teaching and learning strategy and activity has a significant impact on the quality of education and the overall student experience.

CALT's four key areas of activity can be summed up below with examples of what work in each area might look like.

If you would like more information on how CALT can work with you then get in touch with the Schools-Facing Teaching Fellows assigned to your discipline: who to contact

Assessment and Feedback

• Making sure that assessment methods fit learning outcomes, that students receive the sort of feedback that they need in a timely manner and that what is expected of them is transparent

Professional Standards Framework

• Helping you gain recognition for the quality of your teaching and commitment to student learning

Use of New Technologies

• Supporting and helping implement initiatives, not to replace, but to enhance the quality of face-to-face time with students

Personal and Professional Development for students (formally Key Skills)

• Building on the current provision of 'Key Skills' to bring together themes, ideas and suggestions for improved uptake and a more coherent institutional framework that in the longer term will support and promote students' personal and professional development

Internationalisation of the Curriculum

• Helping develop curricula that are inclusive, wide-ranging and that critically engage with global issues in a manner that is culturally sensitive

1. Ensure CALT is visible across UCL at all levels, positioned to influence thinking, decision-making and action at institutional and faculty/departmental levels
2. Establish an outstanding professional support service to UCL's faculties and departments that focuses on UCL's strategic priorities for education, teaching and learning and responds directly to their educational and developmental needs
3. Raise the profile of teaching and learning as a core academic activity, firmly and meaningfully connected to the research endeavour
4. Provide focused and effective support to the implementation of UCL's strategic education initiatives
5. Drive and support evidence-based approaches to developing the curriculum at UCL
6. Establish appropriate professional standards for teaching at UCL, aligned to the UK Professional Standards Framework and other relevant professional frameworks
7. Continue to professionalise and enhance the teaching endeavour and support learning at UCL through the provision of appropriate formal and informal professional development opportunities for staff at all levels and stages of their career
8. Create appropriate opportunities/forums for knowledge sharing, debate, collaboration and dissemination of information and learning across UCL
9. Provide leadership and support to, and participate in, focused internal research and development related to key aspects of teaching and learning at UCL
10. Develop CALT's reputation as a credible and reliable professional team through the consistent and measurable delivery of results