Teaching and learning center

Teaching and learning centers are independent academic units within colleges and universities that exist to provide support services for faculty, to help teaching faculty to improve their teaching and professional development. Teaching centers also routinely provide professional development for graduate students as they prepare for future careers as teaching faculty. Some centers also may provide learning support services for students, and other services, depending on the individual institution. Teaching and learning centers may have different kinds of names, such as faculty development centers, teaching and learning centers, centers for teaching and learning, centers for teaching excellence, academic support centers, and others; a common abbreviation is TLC. The first teaching and learning center in North America was University of Michigan's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, established in 1962. University professors, part-time instructors, or teaching assistants approach teaching as experts in their field and know their contents. However, that does not guarantee success in teaching, as teaching expertise is an altogether different matter. Many instructors have not been trained in teaching methods, and may have difficulties conveying contents and concepts to students, who are relative novices. Novice students approach the information and contents in a course in a much different way than expert teachers, and teachers may not understand the conceptual divide between them and their students. Novice students may perceive the contents of lectures and textbooks as large amounts of information, rather than as meaningful concepts, in contrast to experts, who can naturally see the materials as coherent and meaningful, due to years of mastery. Those who rely on traditional teacher-centered methods such as pure lecture may inadvertently subject students to an information dump, or fail to connect with students at a conceptual level, leaving students unable to learn or retain information in a meaningful manner.