CICT Overview

The Certificate of Innovation in College Teaching (CICT) is a voluntary, non-credit professional development experience designed to prepare graduate students, adjuncts, early-career faculty, and others for teaching and professional life in higher education. The program culminates in the construction of a Digital Teaching Portfolio that illustrates the participant’s professional experiences and skills that will carry them forward into their career. The certificate can generally be completed in 1 to 2 years.

Mission

The mission of the Certificate of Innovation in College Teaching is to professionalize candidates as future educators and to prepare them to engage in a teaching practice that actively…
 Considers students’ access to higher education
 Confronts issues of equity in and out of the classroom
 Espouses current best practices in higher education
 Adopts evolving innovations that are supported by research.

Outcomes

Candidates who successfully complete the Certificate of Innovation in College Teaching will be…

 Familiar with pedagogical best practices and able to implement evidence-based methodologies in their discipline;
 Able to develop a teaching philosophy that includes an ongoing reflective teaching approach;
 Able to apply practices that enhance access and equity in their teaching;
 Enabled to incorporate evolving innovations into their future teaching practice.

National Graduate and Professional Student Teaching Competencies

1. Candidates will gain knowledge of how people learn and how to teach consistently with these principles of learning, using a variety of techniques appropriate for the discipline, level, and learning context.
2. Candidates will learn how to consistently set and communicate learning goals and expectations, both for individual class sessions and the overall course, that are appropriate for the discipline, level, learning context, and the institutional curriculum.
3. Candidates will learn how to assess student learning responsibly, equitably, and in alignment with learning goals and use the results to enhance student learning.
4. Candidates will learn to assess and improve their teaching performance through inquiry-based practice informed by a community of scholarly teaching.
5. Candidates will situate their practice and potential career choices within the contexts and cultures of postsecondary disciplines and institutions.
6. Candidates’ teaching practice will be guided by an understanding of ethical issues and codes in postsecondary environments.
7. Candidates will learn how to teach with attention to diversity and inclusion of multiple perspectives so that every student has the opportunity to learn.