2025 Learning Environment Survey
In the fall of 2025, the University of Lethbridge Teaching Centre ran the “Learning Environments Survey”. The intention of this survey was to learn more about academic staff's perspectives on the services currently offered by the Teaching Centre and to gain insight into what additional teaching and learning supports academic staff might be interested in. In this survey, academic staff were asked 27 questions on teaching and learning-related issues that included topics like 1) pedagogical interests/strategies, 2) classroom design, 3) educational technologies/ LMS, and 4) artificial intelligence. There were 108 respondents to the survey. The following data showcases some of the survey highlights.
Pedagogical Interests and Strategies
Teaching Strategies
To better understand the pedagogical practices taking place on our campus, academic staff were asked about their teaching strategies. The responses show that the teaching strategy used most commonly—for both in-person and online contexts—was lecture (with 90 respondents reporting that they lecture in person and 37 reporting that they lecture online), followed by group work (with 73 reporting that they do group work in person and 31 responding that they use group work online). Gamification was the least reported strategy overall (with 8 people responding that they use this in person and 2 selecting that they use gamification online).
Pedagogical Interests
To gain insight into professional development interests, respondents were asked what teaching and learning-focused topics they would want to learn more about. The topics of most interest included enhancing student engagement (with 46 respondents selecting this), developing effective assessments (with 37 selecting this), and using emerging technologies (with 35 selecting this). The topics of least interest included using labour-based/contract-based grading (with 15 selecting this), care-centred pedagogy (with 13 selecting this), and collaborating with teaching assistants (with 10 selecting this).
Classroom Design
Over the years, the Teaching Centre has conducted classroom design work with the intention of creating classrooms that set the stage for engagement and active learning. One of these active learning designs includes the SCALE-UP layout (seen in classrooms like AH177 and SA7212). Because the Teaching Centre is currently in the process of working on new designs, they wanted input from academic staff, as their current use of these spaces will help to inform future designs.