Center for Teaching with Technology

The Center for Teaching with Technology (CTT), located in room 120k of the Cheng Library, is focused on providing support and instruction for educational technology as well as offering consultation in pedagogy, instructional design and development services for faculty members at William Paterson University.

Vision and Goals

The Center for Teaching with Technology (CTT) collaborates with faculty to enhance teaching using pedagogical best practices and emerging technologies in pursuing excellence and innovation in teaching and learning at WPU. In support of our mission, the Center for Teaching with Technology:

  • Provides leadership and assistance in adopting teaching technology into the curriculum.
  • Offers instructional design mentorship to assist faculty in transitioning their courses from traditional to innovative and technology-rich pedagogical methods.
  • Fosters professional development for faculty through a variety of pedagogy-based technology workshops and training.

CTT Services

Faculty can benefit from assistance with their teaching and research through one-on-one consultations. Using the topics listed below as a starting point any member of the faculty can contact us to ask for a consultation at the time and place of his/her preference. Each consultation will be designed to meet the needs of the individual, something impossible to do in the workshop setting.
Those who are interested in forming a like-minded group for a workshop are free do so. We have done a number of small, self-formed workshops for adjuncts or new faculty, etc. and we are happy to continue that practice. 

Quality Matters (QM) is a leader in quality assurance for online education and has received national recognition for its peer-based approach to continuous improvement in online education and student learning. The program features:

  • Faculty-centered, continuous improvement models for assuring the quality of online courses through peer review
  • Professional development workshops and certification courses for instructors and online learning professionals
  • Rubrics for applying quality standards to course design

CTT has developed the Quality Assurance Certificate program to help faculty implementing the Quality Matters-informed skills development curriculum for faculty to teach in online courses by holding a series of one and a half-hour webinars followed by developing a quality online course.. By participating in this program, faculty will learn strategies and gain tools to redesign existing online courses to meet Quality Matters standards.  The QAC program includes two components – two days of intensive training (which will be offered three times a year) and subsequent individualized review of a redesigned course shell with a Quality Matters certified Instructional Designers. The Quality Assurance Certificate will be awarded upon the successful completion of both components, including affirmation by the CTT staff that the redesigned course meets all essential criteria in the Quality Matters rubric.

Our goal is to help faculty develop or convert courses to open (read: free) materials in order to help students pass courses, graduate, and get a job! This can be seen as an issue of retention but we prefer to see is as a service we owe our students!

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OERs range from textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and animation.  (Source: UNESCO)

The cost of textbooks constrains education by discouraging purchase, resulting in less class participation and lower grades, Using open educational resources faculty can lift the financial burden from students and reinvigorate the classroom learning experience.  The literature suggests that benefits include more engaged students who perform better and finish more quickly. At William Paterson members of the Center for Teaching with Technology and the Cheng Library will work to help faculty adopt open educational resources or convert entire courses. For more information on how you can take advantage of this opportunity please contact the WPUNJ OER Interest Team.

How to bridge the gap between theory and the teaching in the classroom? CTT proudly presents the research-based teaching techniques that can be applied apply to your discipline. Each video will guide you the practical strategies and insights you can use in your classroom.  

Backward Design

Building Community in Online Education

Effectively Assess Online Learning

Engaging Students in Online Discussion

Fostering Student Persistence and Success

Providing Effective Feedback