Office of the Provost

Innovative Instruction

The Innovative Instruction Transformation Team, established as an outcome of the SUNY Strategic Plan, made recommendations to leverage the Power of SUNY for supporting academic excellence and student success. A vision for a “network of networks” emerged, including tools and practices that will collaboratively increase efficiency and capacity for SUNY-wide delivery of high quality instruction. The Chancellor, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost have endorsed solutions that will:

• Enhance teaching and learning by providing affordable, innovative, and flexible education in a full range of instructional formats
• Develop instructional talent by creating and supporting communities of practice across disciplines and institutions
• Support, monitor and embrace research on pedagogical practices to continually improve the instructional practices of SUNY faculty
• Extend teaching and learning environments to provide new avenues for development and delivery of collaborative content, courses, and programs in New York and across the globe

This vision is supported by:

Innovative Instruction Technology Grants (IITG)

IITG is a competitive grants program open to SUNY faculty and support staff across all disciplines. IITG encourages development of innovations that meet the Power of SUNY’s transformative vision. Grant recipients will openly share project outcomes in the SUNY Learning Commons, enabling SUNY colleagues to replicate and build upon an innovation.

SUNY Learning Commons (SLC)

(Under development)

The SLC will allow SUNY students, faculty and staff to develop and maintain connections with people, resources, scholarly and instructional materials, fostering innovative teaching and learning practices and building on activities taking place on campuses. Launched as a forum to build and maintain discipline-based communities of practice, it will evolve to leverage the SUNY Learning Network and serve as a “Digital Concierge” to:

• Access SUNY-wide campus course and program catalogs
• Plan and track progress toward degree completion
• Connect with other learners and educators throughout the system
• Share and access scholarly, instructional and best practices materials
• Explore new communication tools to collaborate remotely

SUNY Center for Professional Development (CPD)

The SUNY CPD will provide all faculty and staff with professional development opportunities within their disciplines to support innovative teaching and learning, leadership, scholarly exchange, assessment, accreditation support, and academic initiatives. More specifically, enabled by the SUNY Learning Commons and through the coordinated efforts of SUNY’s campuses, System Administration, and University-wide programs and initiatives, the CPD will:

• Provide comprehensive programs in a range of formats to graduate studies in all aspects of education and informed by research and scholarship in teaching and learning
• Serve as a central resource to support and enhance campus-based professional development opportunities
• Support teaching and learning communities of practice both virtually and on-site
• Facilitate annual conferences and other face-to-face and virtual events to share ideas, best practices, and innovations in teaching and learning

Additional Program Initiatives are under development to support applied research in teaching and learning and Open SUNY. More Power of SUNY transformation information will be posted as it becomes available.