Reflection on the Construction of Center of Teaching and Learning Development in China University

Abstract

Since 2011, China’s universities have established the Center of Teaching and Learning Development (CTLD), which has become a new measure to drive the teaching reform in colleges and universities, promoting the development of teachers’ teaching and learning, and improving the quality of personnel training. At present, the research on CTLD in universities has become a hot issue among the researches of higher education in China, but some basic confused questions on it are still unclear. CTLD is an exotic concept derived from the United States; therefore, in the process of localization or sinicization, we need to answer some major questions: What is the center? Why should we construct the center? How to construct it? What should be constructed? This paper maintains that CTLD in Chinese universities and colleges is a policy-driven, exogenous center construction mode which is different from the endogenous center mode of European and American universities. As a service academic entity, CTLD is designed to respond to the mission of the teacher, the change of the social environment and the needs of the teacher’s development. The construction method needs to follow the supportive, holistic, serviceable and differentiated principles, carrying out effective work under the progressive ways of foundation, expansion and characteristics to achieve the localization of the central construction, thus promoting the development of the Center so as to eventually shoulder its due mission. This paper will elaborate the China’s CTLD from five aspects, including its status quo of researches, organization orientation, origin of founding, and construction principles.