CEL Services

The Center for Engaged Learning (CEL) offers a variety of individual and group services for our faculty including inclusive teaching programs, organized conversations about current pedagogical topics, Instructional Design consultation, a Peer Mentoring Program, and confidential 1:1 consultation.

Spring 2025

Call to participate in a Community of Practice!

Are you interested in participating in a Community of Practice (CoP)? This Spring, the CEL is looking for faculty members to participate in a CoP for the below topics. CoP meetings can take a variety of forms (in-person, Zoom, or hybrid) and ideally support the KU Strategic Plan.

Spring 2025 Topics

  • Classroom Visits: we can learn so much from visiting each other's classes. What's it like to teach a studio, FYS, large lecture, seminar, or lab course?  How does a colleague work with groups or facilitate discussion? This community of practice will focus on informally visiting each other's classes and then discussing what we notice about teaching. 
  • Research and Scholarship: maintaining a research/creative practice at a 4-4 teaching institution can be difficult. This CoP will focus on building a supportive accountability network and sharing resources and ideas for securing time for scholarly growth. 
  • Teaching and Learning with Digital Tools: leveraging technology to enable your teaching can be a challenge. Effective teaching is driven by sound pedagogical principles, not the tools used, and technology should support student learning outcomes, not define them. This community will focus on the equitable and impactful use of digital tools to support student learning.

Organization

Each CoP will be organized by one or more facilitators from the KU community, with support from the CEL. Once formed, CoP facilitators will schedule meeting times and locations, and discuss and establish collective goals, participant responsibilities, sharing of findings, and organizational structure. CoPs are intended to be equitable, with all members playing an equal role in their success.

Support from the CEL

The CEL supports CoP facilitators and participants in many ways, including:

  • Assisting facilitators in developing their communities' titles, descriptions, and meeting options.
  • Matching facilitators and topics with prospective CoP members.
  • Advising facilitators on group communications and logistics such as scheduling, on-campus or virtual meeting spaces, and community activities.
  • The CEL will also consider aiding in the purchase of supporting materials –such as books– on a per-request basis.

Join today!

If you'd like to participate in one or more of the above communities, please complete this form.

Faculty Mentoring Program

The Faculty Mentoring Program is open to all faculty. Mentee-mentor pairs meet regularly throughout the academic year with support from the CEL.

If you would like to request a faculty mentor, or if you  would like to become a faculty mentor, please visit or Faculty Mentoring page or fill out this handy form. 

KUtztown exCEL: faculty journal of the CEL

Our online journal, KUtztown exCEL, is a place to learn more about how KU's faculty are advancing pedagogy by advocating for students and working together to enact an understanding of teaching and learning within a community of mutual respect.

Articles published in this journal combine personal experience, current conversations in academia, and a theoretical foundation that presumes the value, strength, and independent thinking of all learners.

more CEL Services

  • FYS Peer Mentoring Program

    FYS FACULTY PEER MENTORING PROGRAM

    The FYS Faculty Peer Mentoring Program is open to all FYS faculty at Kutztown University. Any FYS faculty member can participate as a mentee, but only faculty members with previous FYS teaching experience may serve as a mentor. At the beginning of each academic year, a call for new mentees will be issued, when prospective mentees are invited to review the mentor profiles and request a mentor. Once mentee-mentor pairs are matched, they will meet regularly throughout the academic year, with periodic check-ins and support from the CEL faculty director.

    HOW TO get involved

    If you would like to get involved with the FYS Peer Mentoring Program, please .

  • CEL Engaged Teaching and Learning Sequence 2025

    Professional Learning Opportunity for KU Faculty

    CEL Engaged Teaching and Learning Sequence 2025
    An Initiative of the Center for Engaged Learning Inclusivity Institute

    Deadline for registration: TBA, Spring 2025

    Register by completing our online form. Notifications for enrollment are automatic via email.

    PURPOSE:

    The purpose of the professional learning opportunity is to provide KU faculty with the skills and knowledge that help positively impact their teaching and learning through a sequence of four two-week facilitated online, asynchronous courses. Participants are eligible to participate in any or all of the below facilitated online, asynchronous courses. The expected outcome is cultivating engaged students through the deliberate and thoughtful design of a learning environment that supports their growth and development as purposeful, motivated learners.

    SCHEDULE: 

    The 2025 course sequence is listed below:

    • Course 1: TBA May - June: Basics of Universal Design for Learning (UDL)*
    • Course 2: TBA June: Design and Align Your Learning Outcomes
    • Course 3: TBA June - July: Inclusive Teaching*
    • Course 4: TBA July: Lecture Transformation

    *These courses are each eligible for $300 in professional development funding upon completion.

    AWARD:

    Participants who complete Course 1 and Course 3 of the sequence will be allotted $300 of professional development funding for each, upon completion. The Center for Engaged Learning’s leadership team will make the final determination on the successful completion of all aspects of professional learning.

    For more information, please visit the CEL Engaged Teaching and Learning Sequence page!

  • Course Design Consultation

    Your partners in online course creation and iteration, the Instructional Design team applies research, theory, and best practices in online education to help our faculty create courses that are learner-driven, innovative, and academically rigorous. 

    We provide hands-on online course development, continuous improvement, instructional technology, and multimedia production consultation to anyone teaching courses with an asynchronous component, via any modality (online, hybrid, face-to-face).

    COURSE DESIGN

    Instructional design is the process of analyzing the learning needs of the students to create courses that are effective and engaging. Our Instructional Designers and Technologists can work with you to plan your course, develop your assessment tools, choose the appropriate technologies and media, and refine teaching methods and strategies. 

    Our team utilizes an assortment of tools to create learning opportunities that establish students as active agents in their own learning. Our team is well versed in many tools that can adapt and personalize learning for students and can provide you with meaningful data on their usage, success rates, and content mastery. We also can help you use this data to make more informed interaction and engagement choices.

    CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT & QUALITY MATTERS

    Our Continuous Improvement process is focused on the nationally recognized Quality Matters program, a set of standards that serve as a national benchmark for online course design, and the principles of universal design for learning. KU is a member of QM, and we are committed to providing excellence in online education by helping you design courses that meet and exceed the Quality Matters standards.

    The CEL has developed the Online Course Quality Checklist (OCQC) to help KU faculty ensure that their online course designs are informed by QM-based best practices.

    Instructors can use the OCQC to identify opportunities to improve existing online courses or to design new courses. Instructors can also request that CEL provide them with formative feedback, whether the course is online, hybrid, or in-person.

    OCQC is informed by the Online SUNY COTE Quality Review (OSCQR) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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