Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT)

From the Director


  • 2020-2021 BOARD OF REGENTS FACULTY AWARDS (11/3/2020)

    Nominations are being accepted for campus-based and system-wide recognitions of excellence in teaching or research/creative/scholarly work by full-time, junior faculty members and part-time faculty members of the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities.

    Teaching Awards $$$

    The awards are given to recognize faculty who have distinguished themselves as outstanding teachers for at least five years and have a minimum of two years’ record of accomplishment of promoting instructional improvements for the programs/departments. Each CSU institution may nominate a campus-based awardee and a system-wide awardee will be chosen from this group.

    Research Awards $$$

    The awards are given to recognize faculty from the state universities who are doing exceptional research/creative work. Each CSU institution may nominate a campus-based awardee and a system-wide awardee will be chosen from this group.

    Adjunct Faculty Teaching Awards $$$

    The awards are given to recognize part-time faculty who have distinguished themselves as outstanding teachers with a record of accomplishment of increasing student learning and promoting instructional improvements for the programs/departments. Two applicants might be selected to receive system-wide awards.

    The deadline for submission of nominations November 27, 2020.

    More information can be found at http://www.ct.edu/faculty/awards.

  • CELT Coffee Hour, 9/2 10:30 am (9/1/2020)

    CELT Coffee Hour 9/2/2020 10:30am -11:30am

    Dear Faculty, please join CELT for an informal conversation among peers about teaching. Share and discuss with colleagues your Fall 2020 first week’s experiences, challenges, success stories, moments of joy or disappointment, and useful tips. Faculty at all ranks, tracks and disciplines are invited to join the conversation. Bring your late morning cup of joe and meet a supportive community of human, passionate, and compassionate educators.   Hosted by Brosh Teucher

    Meeting link (requires WCSU login)

  • CELT Tribute (5/15/2020)

    Frontline Nursing Faculty

    Click to listen to the podcast with frontline faculty.

    During this pandemic, we pay tribute to our heroic frontline faculty from the Nursing department.


    Dr. Linda Dalessio (upper left) has joined the faculty at Western Connecticut State University full time as an assistant professor. She has taught at Western as an adjunct professor in the BSN program at Waterbury since 2008. Linda graduated with her ADN in 1984 from Capitol Community Technical College in Hartford and received her BSN in 1999 from Elsevier College in New York. She went on to receive her MSN in Forensic nursing at Quinnipiac University. Linda then attended   St. Louis University and graduated in 2005 with a post master’s degree as an acute care nurse practitioner. She is certified by the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC). Linda has worked as a critical care nurse and nurse practitioner in acute and adult care in many different areas.

    She has authored and co-authored grants obtained from the American Association of Critical Care Nurses. Linda currently has completed a chapter in an upcoming publication for acute care nurse practitioners that deals with toxicology and overdose in the intensive care unit. Publication should be early in 2015. Linda is a member of the American Association of Critical Care Nurses (AACN) and has been CCRN certified since 1989.


    Dr. Eileen Campbell (upper right) is an assistant professor of Nursing at Western Connecticut State University. Eileen is also a practicing Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN). Eileen’s research interests include nursing education and pain management.  As a first-generation college graduate and first-generation American, Eileen is passionate about helping students navigate college and be successful in the nursing program.


    Professor Doreen Graham (bottom left) is a full- time Assistant Professor in Nursing at Western Connecticut State University. Doreen has been a full- time professor this past five years and is in the process of finishing her Doctorate dissertation in Nursing Education at Western Connecticut State University. Doreen is also a part-time per diem Nurse Practitioner at Waterbury Hospital in the Cardiovascular Critical Care Unit. Doreen’s background in both nursing and advance practice nursing has been for over thirty years in critical care. Doreen is board certified in critical care and is a member of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, the American Association of Nurse Practitioners and the American College of Cardiology. Professor Doreen Graham is also a member of both the Mu Beta and Kappa Alpha Chapters of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.

    Professor Doreen Graham teaches undergraduate nursing at Western Connecticut State University. Doreen is also a preceptor for WCSU advance practice nursing students in the cardiovascular unit.


    Andrew Hull (bottom right) is the Nursing Simulation Coordinator at Western Connecticut State University.

     

    References

    Campbell, E. (2020). Faculty perspectives of teaching pain management to nursing students. Pain Management Nursing21(2) 179-186.

  • Highlighting Innovative Faculty (9/25/2019)

    My name is Adam Brewer, Ph.D., and I am the new director for the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT). I am an Associate Professor from the Education and Educational Psychology Department (https://www.wcsu.edu/education/). I serve as a faculty member in the Applied Behavior Analysis program.

    I want to share my excitement for the upcoming year as CELT director! I am proud to report that we have a fantastic foundation of success to build on from the strong efforts of past directors and a wise advisory board. One of my first priorities will be to make “good” teaching visible to the Western Connecticut State University teaching community.

    A major priority of mine is to make rewarding “good” teaching into a habit. To accomplish this mission, I would absolutely love to highlight innovative teaching and dissemination practices (e.g., Aloni & Harrington, 2018) on the CELT website (https://celtwcsu.wordpress.com/). Do not hesitate to share your own practices or praise your colleague’s teaching. Please share with me their name and an example of why what they are doing is awesome. Two or three sentences will be sufficient. My email is brewera@wcsu.edu

    In terms of the bigger picture, we want to continue moving forward and nurture a growth mindset culture (e.g., Rhew, Piro, Goolkasian, & Cosentino, 2018). We should be fearless as we approach innovative teaching practices (https://wcsuprovostblog.com/2019/09/09/being-vulnerable/). The hope here is that the rewards for approaching innovation will outweigh the risks of trying something new. The keys to success will include self-reflection and careful analysis of measurable outcomes to determine what worked and what did not work. To paraphrase a popular movie from the 90s, “Show Me the Data!”

    Now let us have some fun and celebrate our successes as a teaching community in a visible fashion. I look forward to receiving your examples of innovative teaching!

    Forward!

  • Welcome (8/30/2017)

    Welcome to the website for the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, a collaboration between CELT and the Technology and Instructional Design for Digital Learning (TIDDL).

    We are a teaching university.  As such, we recognize that first among our myriad responsibilities is working with our students as teachers, advisors, and mentors.  The bitter irony is that in the face of a heavy teaching load, we struggle to carve out time to think about student engagement and innovation in our classrooms.  There are semesters when you may feel as I do, careening from task to task, that like Alice through the looking glass, we must run twice as fast just to keep in the same place. It has never been more important to nurture and support a community of educators.  That community is even more vital in an environment too often seems to undervalue education at a public regional university.

    The redesigned website reflects a variety of strategies to foster community and to promote the work of faculty and staff. Our goal is to meet faculty where they are; to bring the conversation to you in your cars, in your offices, and on-line, as well as in more conventional face-to-face programs. Links to recordings of face-to-face programs, podcasts, training materials, and webinars are a central feature of the website.  Faculty and staff from across the university will be invited to contribute blog posts on topics of interested in pedagogy and innovation in the classroom.

    We welcome comments, and suggestions for future CELT programs, blogposts, book or resource reviews, and podcasts.  And we look forward to vigorous and stimulating conversations.
    Director, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching