Research On Teaching And Learning Centers Of Universities In Canada

Since the 1980 s,we have been putting more and more attention to the quality of higher education.In order to fully and effectively improve the quality of undergraduate teaching,the universities of the West have set up some teaching support service institutions to promote teacher development,protect and improve the quality of teaching,cultivate good teaching culture.As the second biggest country of North America in higher education,Canada attaches great importance to the quality of undergraduate teaching.Most universities in Canada have established their special teaching support service institution——Teaching Development Centre.U15 is a university union consisting of Canada's top 15 research universities.In order to better enhance the university's teaching quality,each member of U15 has at least one teaching development centre with a sound system.These teaching development centres generally have a long history,develop very well and have distinctive features.There is a lot we can learn from them.Depending on the number of university teaching development centres of Canada during a certain period,and the appropriate background and development of higher education in Canada,we think the history of Canadian university teaching development centre can be divided into three stages: the spring up,the slow development and the prosperity.At each stage,the establishment and development of university teaching development centers had its specific historical background,development characteristics and trends.By studying university teaching development centers of U15,we can find most of U15 have immediate institution and the functions of service,coordination,research and evaluation.Besides,they have four organizational operation mechanisms:service mechanism,incentive mechanism,security mechanism and coordination mechanism.Service mechanism includes consultation,training,resources and technology services;incentive mechanism includes material incentives and spiritual incentives;security mechanism includes human,material and information resources;and at the same time,these centres have formed a highly effective and thorough coordination mechanism.They have clear and reasonable common goals,actively andcontinuing contributions will,convenient and efficient communication system.By the comprehensive inquiry of U15's teaching development centres,we found that they have the following characteristics: the concept of human nature,the diversity of the role,the professionalism of the staff,multiple service and coordinate organization.This provides us the inspiration and experience: adhere to the people-oriented service concept,establish an independent professional team,carry out a wide range of programs and services,provide a variety of teaching resources and build an efficient unified coordination mechanism.