Students are not the only ones that are looking to learn and improve. Teachers will now have the opportunity to enhance their own abilities in the classroom.
September 1, 2008, will mark the official launch of the Center for Teaching and Learning in building 14, room 301.
“What the center is going to do is help faculty develop opportunities for professional development,” says new Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, Dr. Kathy Rowell.
Rowell has been at Sinclair for 13 years in the Sociology department and has many accomplishments on her resume. She has earned her BA and MA from Wright State University, along with a PhD from Ohio State University. In 2005, Rowell won the award for Outstanding Community College Professor of the Year by the Council for Advancement of Scholarship and Education and the Carnegie Foundation.
She has also been running the Honors Program at Sinclair for the last two years but will now concentrate on getting her newest challenge up and running.
“We’re trying to help teachers here at Sinclair figure out better ways to help students learns,” says Rowell. “It’s ultimately focused on student learning because that is why we are all here.”
The Center for Teaching and Learning will focus on faculty development but the outcome of that development is to increase student learning.
“I’m hoping to involve students,” says Rowell. “What I would like to do is have students come by if they have seen something in a classroom that they think is a great idea.”
Rowell believes that teachers have to have continuing education in order to be effective in the classroom. The more that the faculty at Sinclair learns than the better they can develop themselves effective teachers.
“Sinclair has lots of opportunity for teachers to learn more about teaching and learning, but we are going to have a concentrated effort now,” says Rowell.
Rowell reiterates that the Center for Teaching and Learning is not only for the continuing education of Sinclair’s faculty, but also to help improve the education of Sinclair’s students.
“I’m sure students don’t think about this sometimes,” says Rowell. “But teachers have to have continue their education, too.”