We’d like to congratulate Charline Rowland (teaching consultant), Mark Vehec (web developer), Robin Albright (senior instructional designer), and Tahirah Walker (manager, Teaching Support) for earning the Teaching Center’s 2019 Advancing Educational Excellence award! The annual honor is a peer-driven award that recognizes Teaching Center staff members who exemplify the values of the center, demonstrate a positive attitude and commitment to responsibilities, and make above-and-beyond contributions to the University.

Our center is available to assist faculty interested in submitting a proposal for the 2020 Innovation in Education Awards. Faculty may submit a consultation request to meet with a teaching consultant on Jan. 22-23 in Room 811B of Alumni Hall, and/or join us for our Grant Writing Workshop on Jan. 24 in Alumni Hall for support in developing a proposal. Please contact teaching@pitt.edu with any questions.

The Teaching Center has a number of resources available to assist instructors with Pitt's transition to the Canvas Learning Management System. Visit our Canvas @ Pitt web pages to learn more about this transition and to sign up for one of our January workshops. Canvas will become the University's sole learning management system at the start of the summer 2020 term.

Earlier this month, we invited Animal Friends to the Cathedral of Learning to provide a little respite for students during finals week. You can watch the interactions and hear from both students and our furry friends in latest edition of Headlines.

The Hybrid and Online Teaching and Learning Seminar is an eight-week course for faculty who are interested in strengthening their online teaching acumen. Participants will build a sample online course and evaluate the demo courses of their peers. This seminar work together as a cohort and will meet once a week for 90 minutes (four times face-to-face and four times synchronously online)

The annual Assessment and Teaching Conference will be held on Friday, Jan. 24, 2020. Faculty are invited to submit proposals for poster sessions that focus on any aspect of teaching, learning, and/or assessment in their teaching practice. Topics should provide examples of innovative teaching, such as classroom strategies, technologies to enhance pedagogy, diversity in the curriculum, or innovative approaches to teaching. Proposal submissions are due by Dec. 20, 2019. Acceptance letters will be sent by Jan. 6, 2020. To submit a proposal, please visit the conference web page.