Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning Through Research (CATLR)

The Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning Through Research (CATLR) fosters a Northeastern teaching community that is grounded in the practice of using evidence from learning science research to cultivate inclusive learning environments. CATLR learning scientists collaborate with faculty, staff and co-curricular educators, administrators, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students to create learning environments in which all learners’ prior experience is respected, validated, and welcomed as the basis for enriching the climate of the learning environment and increasing the transferable knowledge and skills that learners develop in that context.

Efforts

• Year-long evidence-based teaching and service-learning cohort programs provide educators, while the Future Faculty Programoffers a similar opportunity for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
• The Teaching Inquiry Fellows Program convenes full-time faculty as a reflective community of inquiry, exploring interdisciplinary and disciplinary education research literature and systematic methods that can be used for rigorous scholarly inquiry into teaching. Programming for the 2019 cohort includes intentional examination of issues related to diversity and inclusive pedagogies.
• To promote research into effective and inclusive environments, the Faculty Scholars Program supports full-time faculty as they design and carry out a scholarship of teaching and learning study. Drawing on emerging learning science research to create deeper learning experiences, many faculty project results have demonstrated that innovative instruction often benefits lowest-achieving or underrepresented students most, while benefiting all students substantially.
• Programming on a variety of teaching and learning topics, such as promoting deep learning in a globally diverse classroom and facilitating productive, inclusive discussions, provide educators with ideas and resources and connect them with a community considering the same issues.
• Inquiry groups provide an extended but informal format for discussion, such as Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education and Intercultural Pedagogy.
• CATLR supports research and the grant application process around a wide variety of topics related to innovative teaching, learning, and curricular and programming approaches that generate inclusive learning environments. Housing expertise in assessment and evaluation, CATLR can consult on grant evaluation plans.
• Consultations with individual educators, as well as at the department and college levels, support the creation of engaging and intellectually challenging learning environments in which all learners can succeed. These consultations can focus on any aspect of teaching and learning, including establishing an inclusive climate and drawing on learners’ diverse experiences.