Strategy 14: Investment
Ryerson will invest in the learning and teaching environment of a twenty-first century university; support pedagogical innovation;
preserve its studio and lab cultures; and strengthen its experiential learning model.
Other Information:
The Learning and Teaching Environment -- It is difficult to separate the learning and teaching environment from any other
part of this Plan, as learning and teaching are intrinsic to everything else. The learning environments in modern universities
have been in a period of slow evolution since the 1960s, when many of an earlier generation’s assumptions about what should
be studied, and how, were reconfigured (or, less often, set aside). Arguably, however, the technological revolution of our
day will do more to reshape the nature, the rhythms, and the daily habits of students and faculty than any other changes in
a very long time. Where for example will social networking sites, podcasting, and other digital media take us? How will the
requirements of greater transferability, greater flexibility, and the pressures of time affect what happens in classrooms,
what happens in a virtual environment, and so forth? Impossible to answer, especially with firm conviction, but important
to contemplate. And it is important to have in place some means for helping us all keep up with the technological and other
kinds of change, and for inspiring new ways of constructing curricula, or new ways of using classroom time, using virtual
environments, whatever the changes may be. The Learning and Teaching Office has a mandate that includes stimulating change
on the Ryerson campus through a variety of means. In response to the theme of decentralization the LT O has adjusted its model
of support, so that some services continue to be offered centrally, while others have migrated to individual faculties. It
will be important over the next five years to have the LT O’s model continue to evolve, and to explore the state of resources
across campus devoted to stimulating the learning and teaching environment. Key areas to be explored will be the provision
of support for teaching assistants; support for individual faculty members working on pedagogy projects or improvements; and
departments, schools, and faculties who are working to revise or reframe courses and programs; learning technology; learning
spaces; and student engagement.
Indicator(s):
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