What is CiTL?
CITL or the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CiTL) is an enabling hub for achieving institutional goals of increasing market to its product by providing outstanding instruction and support for not only our new but also for the continuing professional development of our veteran/experienced faculty members. Hence, this will lead the university be able to produce graduates that can compete globally, not only employed as leaders to industries but also to have been given an option to become successful innovators.
CITL 4-point Agenda
CHALLENGE the teaching, problem-solving, and work paradigms to improvise or develop new strategies or approaches that are relevant enough to enhance students' learning or target users' experiences.
Core Programs : CDIO (Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate) and DT (Design Thinking)
This can be realized by embracing the strong potentials of CDIO or Conceive-Design-Implement-Operate framework and DT or Design Thinking to foster empathy, active learning, collaboration, improvement of work outputs, and problem-solving strategies. Adoption of new or modified teaching-learning activities can be empower students to value the importance of developing explicitly their innovative skills to help them face the challenges of the 21st century.
IMPROVE the effectiveness of existing curricula by periodically incorporating key strategies to keep their relevance abreast towards industry's needs and for continous improvement of instruction.
Core Programs : CQI (Continuous Quality Improvement) and Curriculum Review
The never-ending goal of constantly improving the subjects' syllabi of all offered academic programs shows the vigilance that USTP Faculty are expected to always re-tool themselves and upgrade their teaching prowess based on the current demands of the society. Feedback from students, their attributes, their learning, and their skills development should always be assessed appropriately knowing that they are the most important stakeholder of the community and it is USTP's goal to prepare them for life and for the world of work.
THRIVE in the field of the teaching profession embracing it as a very important role that requires enthusiasm, lifelong learning and a harmonious community of practice.
Core Programs : FOCUS (Faculty On-boarding Career Upstart Seminar) and FMCP (Faculty Mentoring and Coaching Program)
This can be ensured by way of recognizing that teaching is a noble profession and can allow each one to start, learn new things and grow holistically both as a professional and a mentor for others. Strategizing career orinetations, administering assistances, and packaging readily-available comprehensive materials can prove vital in maximizing the competitiveness, sense of purpose, and sense of belongingness of all faculty.
LEAD in the showcasing and sharing best practices in terms of teaching, learning, and other related activities promoting innovative endeavors that can motivate, persuade, and inspire the academic community and other relevant stakeholders.
Core Programs: ITS (Innovative Teaching Series: EDConvos & Buzz Buffet) and TEA (Teaching Excellence Awards)
What other way to recognize the exemplary efforts and noteworthy performance of teachers than to showcase their best practices to the whole academic community for inspiration and motivation. The evaluation from key stakeholders like students and fellow academic professionals fortify these endeavors towards innovations in education. These series of stories, exhibits, and documentation aim to appreciate and empower everyonw to foster a community of practive and lifelong learning.
CITL remains steadfast and committed in advocating the practice of innovation in teaching and learning in the whole USTP system and to its linkages.
CITL believes that as long as there is the willingness to L.E.A.D (Learn, Engage, Adapt, Disrupt), then the journey to innovation in education never stops...
Rationale
Science, technology, and innovation have always been recognized as essential for national development in the Philippines. However, it is crucial to create ecosystems that support innovation, in order to fully reap the benefits of these fields as significant drivers of economic development, thus boosting the country’s global competitiveness.
During this K to 12 transition and as part of the larger efforts towards a globally competitive Philippines, USTP would like to seize this opportunity to give emphasis and strengthen the innovation mindset among members in the university. The establishment of the CiTL aims to develop the capacity of the faculty/professors to teach any course anchored on the innovation framework, starting with CDIO and design thinking, and to create a facility for digital technologies to be developed.
The CITL , along with other initiatives of the university, will help USTP in producing skilled graduates who will spur innovation that will answer to the needs of the community, thus responding to the industry’s requirement of a future employee or better yet graduates who will be leaders and job creators. These outcomes answer to the grant’s thrusts of nationalism, inclusive growth and sustainable development, and global competitiveness.
The initiatives involved in achieving these goals and outcomes will also create opportunities for sustainability through endowments, engagements, paid trainings and workshops to name a few.
Our Purpose
The learners today have different realities than how the older generation was taught and how they learned in University. Due to the changing profile of our students, a developing country like the Philippines should constantly reflect and review if the academic experiences offered to the students still cultivate a broader set of skills and dispositions beyond the content knowledge. The old curriculum and pedagogy have failed to transform the younger generation into active learners and meaning creators. Thus, we are not doing justice to National Development, especially since knowledge has become a power in a globalized world. Recently, the university has faced different, new challenges and pressures. Aside from the issuance of CMO no. 37 series 2012 requiring the establishment of an outcomes-based education system in higher institutions, there is the introduction of the conceive, design, innovate, operate (CDIO - in 2014) concepts from TEMASEK Singapore to the Philippine universities as an innovative strategy in teaching and learning which many top international universities have adopted and implemented.
ASEAN integration, international accreditation, and globalization are also forcing us to go in this direction for the university to produce graduates that can compete globally. Aside from all these challenges and external forces, the university felt the importance of being more responsive to students' needs and more concerned about how well students are prepared to assume future societal roles and be recognized in the international community. USTP has also been a partner for five years with Singapore Polytechnic to implement Learning Express, in which the design thinking (DT) framework has been used to create and propose solutions to the community’s problems. However, CDIO and DT have been limited to specific activities and have only been employed by a few trained Faculty. The need to institutionalize and have an enabling mechanism is called for. Thus, this center is proposed as this will help facilitate the realization of USTP’s mission and vision as this will facilitate the integration of the Disruptive Innovation Framework/Paradigm (CDIO and Design thinking) in the different curricular programs, which includes the development and support of the teaching and learning of innovation courses in engineering and other programs through capacity & capability-building training of the Faculty. Provide the venue where effective educational strategies, best teaching evidence-based practices, and pedagogy are shared among faculty members. Exemplar curricular programs/courses where the Educational Technologies have been used/integrated into the instruction will be communicated to other HEIs.
Our Mission
For the realization of one of USTP’s new administration’s 7-point agenda, specifically the “Yearn for Excellence in Teaching and Learning,” it is the aim of the center to be an enabling hub for achieving institutional goals, to manage and supervise the introduction and implementation of new pedagogies, and start building the innovative teaching and learning ecosystems to produce quality graduates that are not only educated to support and work in an industry/company but also educated to become innovative entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders.
Specifically, CiTL, as a faculty support, will:
a) facilitate the integration of the CDIO and Design thinking in the different curricular programs, which include the development and support of the teaching and learning of innovation courses in engineering and other programs through capacity & capability-building training of the faculty;
b) provide the venue where effective educational strategies, best teaching evidence-based practices, and pedagogy are shared among faculty members, and
c) facilitate the review and design of the curriculum/courses/programs to sustain and promote innovation.
