Good, Fast, Cheap: How Centers of Teaching and Learning Can Capitalize in Today's Resource-Constrained Context

Abstract

This article provides leaders and educational developers of Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTL) with innovative and practical strategies on how to increase their centers’ capacity and impact by focusing on quality, efficiency, and cost. This “good, fast, cheap” model represents a promising way that CTL can continue to grow, scale, and innovate in the midst of limited resources. By leveraging existing campus resources, external vendor products, and low‐cost technologies, CTL are able to remain effective and impactful, without compromising quality or requiring abundant resources. This article will include real use‐case examples from a CTL at a mid‐size, private, nonprofit university in Southern California and its use of the “good, fast, cheap” model in its planning and implementation with the aim of generalizing these creative solutions to be applied elsewhere.

The current state and impact of Covid‐19 on digital higher education in Germany

“…There is a need for central service units such as the Centers for Teaching and Learning in the Anglo‐American world (cf. Truong, Juillerat, & Gin, 2016), which advise and qualify teachers to develop, implement and facilitate online or blended courses. Especially now, it is taking its toll that such centers or e‐learning units for teaching and learning in higher education are often very thinly staffed in Germany with limited resources and often only temporary project personnel financed by third‐party funds.…”

Best Practices Framework for Online Faculty Professional Development: A Delphi Study

“…Rethinking approaches to faculty development around identified best practices can be a relevant and viable method to serve online faculty (Truong, Juillerat, & Gin, 2016). Understanding the needs of online faculty is the first step to planning effective professional development.…”

Leveraging Collaboration and Peer Support to Initiate and Sustain a Faculty Development Program

“…1). This situation of high need and low finances leads to programs such as those described in "Good, Fast, Cheap: How Centers of Teaching and Learning Can Capitalize in Today's Resource-Constrained Context" (Truong et al, 2016). The article describes how the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment at Azusa Pacific University, a much larger center than ours, shares a pool of student workers between 26 full-time staff (across the main and regional campuses serving 10,000 students), utilizes "faculty fellows" to assist teachers, and organizes a faculty-led Faculty Development Day as ways of being good, fast, and cheap.…”