I wanted to bring to your attention a whole collection of resources that Carleton faculty have access to for their use. These are the resources developed by faculty from across Canada which are organized within the Institute for the Advancement of Teaching in Higher Education (iathe.org).  All Carelton faculty have open access to these resources because of our membership in the IATHE.

A bit of background . . .

In 2001, I took a sabbatical. It was also a year in which I received a Teaching Achievement Award. I used the sabbatical time and award funding to partner with colleagues from across the country to create a new online resource to support teaching in higher education. You can find this at www.facultydevelopment.ca (it is now part of the IATHE). It is beyond the scope of this brief posting to give you the whole history of this project as it involved a substantial CANARIE grant for our work which was followed by the creation of the not-for-profit Institute to continue our collaboration and resource development. I have attached an early history of these projects if you're interested. The key thing is that you can find interesting, useful and timely resources for your own teaching development through www.iathe.org

You will need to register the first time you visit, but there is no charge to you. I encourage you to take the time to explore the resources that are provided. I would be happy to discuss the Institute or facultydevelopment.ca with interested colleagues.

I will post more things here in the future that may be of use.  (Even though I'm not  currently teaching in ArtsOne or a FYS, I began my career at Carleton designing curriculum for an early version of the FYS, and I have taught many sections of this important seminar.) You can learn more about this work at http://http-server.carleton.ca/~tpychyl/new_fys/  (Here you will learn about our early networking initiatives with a brown-bag faculty community, conference presentations and the early beginnings of a "teaching commons.")

I'll stop here. Email me at tpychyl@ccs.carleton.ca if you want to talk about teaching.

I'm a big fan of Parker Palmer who writes, "The resources we need in order to grow as teachers are abundant within the community of colleagues. How can we emerge from our privatization and create a continuing conversation about pedagogy what will allow us to tap that abundance? Good talk about good teaching is what we need – to enhance both our professional practice and the selfhood from which it comes" (Palmer, 1998; p. 144).

I believe the Teaching Commons and similar initiatives provide a place for "good talk about good teaching." I look forward to our continued conversations.

tim