Professional Development Series
The Teaching & Learning Center (TLC) offers a professional development series for faculty, staff, and graduate students each academic year. The TLC is invested in maximizing the excellence of the teaching and learning mission at Kansas State University. The professional development series will provide experiences, information, resources, and networking to help faculty, staff, and graduate students improve their craft in teaching, mentoring, and advising in many ways.
Types of Events:
Need-to-Know Events (NTK):
Need-to-Know events (NTKs) are professional development opportunities designed to address topics and issues that are relevant for all teachers, mentors, and advisors.
General Professional Development Events (GPD):
General professional development events (GPDs) are designed to cover special topics and supplement our Need-to-Know events.
Teaching CHATs:
Teaching CHATs are open forums wherein faculty, staff, and graduate students are invited to voice concerns about what they are currently experiencing in their classes. These sessions are intended to be broad, discussion-based sessions during which the K-State community can crowdsource potential solutions. CHATs do not count toward the requirements/expectations for the TLC Professional Development certificate.
Earning TLC Certificates
We offer two certificates for faculty, staff, and graduate students who attend our professional development series: the TLC Professional Development Certificate and the TLC Fellows. While these certificates reflect our appreciation for your engagement in our series, they also reflect your motivation and efforts toward teaching excellence. Click here to see TLC Fellows and Professional Development Certificate Holders.
The deadline for applications is Friday, May 17th, 2024 by 5pm. Please email Ashley Schiffer (schiffer@ksu.edu) with 1) your Final Reactions submission (for the Certificate) and/or your Fellows Application and 2) the campus address where you would like your certificate to be mailed.
TLC Professional Development Certificate
Earning a TLC Professional Development Certificate demonstrates your commitment to improving your own excellence in teaching and learning. To earn a TLC Professional Development Certificate, you will earn twelve (12) event credits by participating in various events over the course of the academic year. Most of these events will be part of the TLC Professional Development Series, will be 60 minutes long, and will count as one (1) event credit. You will earn at least four (4) of your twelve (12) event credits by participating in events in this series designated as “Need-to-Know” events that address topics and issues of broad interest to teachers, mentors, and advisors.
You will document your participation and earn event credits by completing a Post-Event Survey about what you learned and how you will use what you learned in your teaching, mentoring, or advising for each event in which you participate. After earning your twelve (12) total event credits (from the TLC Professional Development Series, the “Need-to-Know” events, Spotlight), you will complete a Final Reaction of your experience.
Becoming a TLC Fellow
Being selected as a TLC Fellow demonstrates your commitment not only to improving your own excellence in teaching and learning, but to improving the teaching and learning excellence of others. To be selected as a TLC Fellow, you will complete the requirements for the TLC Professional Development Certificate as described above. You also will submit a TLC Fellow Application on which you summarize your efforts to improve the teaching and learning climate at Kansas State University and beyond. These efforts may include having given presentations or workshops on teaching and learning topics, engaging in the scholarship on teaching and learning (SoTL), etc. You will also provide an abstract for a workshop/presentation on a teaching and learning topic that, if selected as a TLC Fellow, you would like to offer as a professional development event next year.