Overview
Pedagogical training works best when it is specific and immediately usable. Instead of theory-heavy lectures about learning, our workshops model the techniques they teach: short input, active tasks, peer discussion and a redesign exercise on the participant's own course. Participants leave with a revised session plan, assessment or feedback approach rather than just notes.
Programs can target new lecturers (a foundation in planning, delivery, assessment and inclusive practice), experienced faculty (specific themes such as large-class teaching or teaching with generative AI), teaching assistants, or clinical and professional educators. Content draws on established ideas — constructive alignment, retrieval practice, formative feedback, universal design for learning — explained without jargon.
Where institutions want recognition, programs can be structured around a teaching portfolio and peer observation, and aligned with national or professional teaching frameworks your institution uses. Formal fellowships or certifications are awarded by the relevant bodies through their own processes; we help participants prepare evidence and reflection.
Who it’s for and the problems it solves
This is for you if you are…
- Teaching and learning centers needing program design or additional facilitators
- Deans introducing a mandatory induction program for new faculty
- Institutions preparing for accreditation standards on faculty development or teaching effectiveness
- Medical, nursing and professional schools training clinical educators
- Training centers developing trainer-of-trainer programs
Common problems we help with
- Student feedback repeatedly mentions passive lectures and unclear expectations
- New faculty receive no structured teaching preparation
- Staff are unsure how to adapt assessment and teaching to generative AI
- Large classes make feedback and interaction difficult
- Online and blended teaching has been improvised since emergency remote teaching
- Accreditors ask for evidence of teaching development and effectiveness
What’s included — and what isn’t
Included
- Teaching development needs analysis using student feedback, observation data and staff surveys
- New-lecturer foundation program: planning sessions, facilitating learning, assessment and feedback, inclusive teaching
- Themed workshops: active learning in large classes, questioning and discussion, flipped learning, feedback that students use, teaching with and about generative AI
- Online and blended teaching: designing for engagement, synchronous and asynchronous facilitation
- Peer observation scheme design with observation protocols and feedback conversation guides
- Microteaching sessions with structured peer feedback
- Teaching portfolio and reflective practice guidance
- Facilitator guides for your teaching and learning center to run sessions independently
Not included
- Formally evaluating individual staff for promotion or disciplinary purposes
- Awarding external teaching fellowships or professional recognition
- Teaching your courses on behalf of faculty
What you receive
- Program design
- Outcomes, session plans, schedule and participation requirements for the training program.
- Workshop materials
- Slides, activity sheets, case examples from relevant disciplines and pre-reading, licensed for internal reuse.
- Peer observation toolkit
- Observation protocol, pre- and post-observation conversation guides and a reflection template.
- Participant outputs
- Each participant's redesigned session or assessment, with facilitator feedback.
- Evaluation summary
- Participation, participant feedback and follow-up evidence of changes in practice.
How it works
Discovery
Understand your context, student profile, existing provision and what leadership wants to change.
Design
Propose a program with themes, format and schedule; agree it with your teaching and learning lead.
Delivery
Workshops, microteaching and clinics, on-site or online, with practical tasks between sessions.
Application
Participants implement a change in their course; optional peer observation provides feedback.
Evaluation and handover
We collect evidence of change and hand over materials and facilitator guides.
Pedagogical foundations we draw on
- Constructive alignment
- Designing sessions from outcomes and assessment, so activities rehearse what students will be assessed on.
- Active learning techniques
- Think–pair–share, peer instruction with concept questions, worked examples and case discussion, adapted to large classes.
- Retrieval and spaced practice
- Low-stakes quizzes and revisiting key ideas across weeks, well supported by cognitive psychology research.
- Feedback literacy
- Designing feedback students can act on: feed-forward comments, exemplars and opportunities to apply feedback.
- Universal Design for Learning
- Offering multiple ways to engage, access content and demonstrate learning, reducing the need for individual adjustments.
- Reflective practice
- Structured reflection (for example Brookfield's four lenses: self, students, colleagues, literature) for portfolios and peer review.
Workshops that model what they teach
Participants experience the techniques as learners before using them as teachers. A session on active learning in large classes, for example, runs as a large-class session, using clicker-style questions and peer discussion, then asks participants to redesign ten minutes of one of their own lectures and test it on colleagues.
Teaching effectiveness evidence
Accreditors increasingly ask institutions to show that faculty teach effectively, not just that they attended training. We help design evidence beyond student ratings, which are known to be influenced by factors unrelated to teaching quality: peer observation records, teaching portfolios, course redesign outcomes and student learning data.
- Peer observation with a developmental focus
- Portfolios with reflection and evidence of change
- Course-level learning results before and after redesign
- Student feedback interpreted alongside other sources
What the work can look like
Illustrative example — fictional data
Illustrative excerpt: participant redesign
A fictional engineering lecturer with a 250-student mechanics class joined a four-session program. Details are invented.
Starting point
Two-hour lectures with slides; weekly problem sets marked by teaching assistants with little written feedback; students report being lost after week 4.
Change made
Each lecture split into three 25-minute segments, each ending with a concept question answered by polling and peer discussion. Problem-set feedback replaced by a common-errors video each week.
Follow-up evidence
Peer observer recorded higher student participation; mid-term concept inventory results and student comments were collected for the lecturer's portfolio reflection.
Illustrative example; real outputs depend on each participant's course and context.
What you’ll need to provide
- Context on programs, student body and teaching conditions (class sizes, LMS, rooms)
- Existing student feedback or teaching evaluation summaries, anonymized
- Institutional policies on teaching, assessment and AI use
- Participants' time and, for microteaching, suitable rooms or video tools
- Any teaching framework or recognition scheme the program should align with
You don’t need everything ready to ask for a quote — tell us what you have and we’ll say what’s missing.
What affects price and turnaround
Price depends on
- Number of sessions, participants and cohorts
- On-site delivery and travel versus online delivery
- Level of individual feedback, observation and portfolio support
- Customization of case examples to specific disciplines
- Train-the-facilitator component and materials licensing
Turnaround depends on
- Academic calendar — induction programs often need to be ready before semester start
- Participant scheduling and room or platform availability
Every project is quoted individually. How we price our work.
Questions people ask before starting
Is this suitable for experienced professors?
Yes, with a different design. Experienced faculty usually prefer short, themed sessions on a specific challenge (large classes, AI, feedback workload) and peer exchange rather than a foundation program.
Can the training be linked to a recognized teaching qualification?
We can align the program's outcomes and portfolio tasks with teaching frameworks your institution uses. Formal recognition or fellowship is decided by the awarding body through its own process.
Do you train teaching assistants?
Yes. Short programs for teaching assistants focus on running tutorials and labs, consistent marking with rubrics, and giving feedback.
Will observation be used to evaluate staff?
We recommend keeping developmental peer observation separate from performance evaluation, because staff are more open when observation is not judgmental. How your institution uses observation is its decision.
Can sessions be discipline-specific?
Yes. We adapt examples and activities to STEM, health, business, humanities or professional programs, and can run discipline-based cohorts.