Guiding Principles for Our Educational Development Practices
Summary
TI educational developers are guided by integrity, diversity, and inclusivity. We bring an ethic of equity, relationality, and reciprocity to our work. Through our educational practice, leadership, and scholarship we actively contribute to strengthening teaching and learning cultures, communities, and developments within and beyond the University of Calgary. The following principles signify our ethical approach to this work and reflect the spirit of our practice.
Authored by
Smith, E. E., Kenny, N., Arshad, M. A., Biswas, S., Carter, J., Dyjur, P., Grant, K. A, Martineau, C., Usman, F. (2026). Guiding Principles for Our Academic Development Practices. https://taylorinstitute.ucalgary.ca/about/academic-staff-principles.
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CC-BY License 4.0. This is an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits sharing and adaptation with appropriate credit.
Building Capacity
We build our collective capacity through integrated, ethical, and equitable networks of practice and leadership that seek to improve and transform postsecondary teaching and learning. We provide institutional and scholarly context, resources, and expertise to help others enhance their learning, share knowledge, create communities, and influence change in teaching and learning. We believe that teaching and learning expertise and multiple ways of knowing exist within, across, and beyond academic spaces, and that relationships and a relational approach are paramount to building capacity across different levels of higher education. We learn within diverse intercultural contexts and are grounded in our commitment to integrity, which creates opportunities for meaningful dialogue and action.
Fostering Relationships
We believe that relationships are at the heart of teaching and learning. We foster significant conversations and networks through both formal and informal processes that connect people and build meaningful collaborative partnerships. We support the development of reciprocal relationships and collegial collaborations within the TI and across academic communities. We believe that context and culture matter, and that diverse ways of being, knowing, and doing exist. We respect, celebrate, and draw upon the knowledge, experience, and perspectives of the diverse roles, backgrounds, and cultures of our colleagues.
Centring Learning
We believe that learning is a lifelong, continuous process. We see teaching and learning as intricately connected, reciprocally informed, and reflexive. We emphasize evidence-based, ecosystemic approaches to enhancing teaching and learning that lead to meaningful, enriching, and impactful learning experiences for all. We promote and implement strategies that empower educators and students to actively engage in learning. We acknowledge that learning is an iterative and contextual process that can be supported by critical reflection, research-informed principles, and diverse ways of knowing, being, and doing.
Furthering Scholarly and Cultural Relevance
We believe it is important to critically examine knowledge and assumptions through inquiry, scholarly practice, research, and culturally relevant approaches. We commit to making decisions based on the best available information that incorporates multiple ways of knowing. We actively engage in research and scholarship to strengthen educational development, and teaching and learning cultures at UCalgary and in the wider field of higher education. We provide research-informed institutional and scholarly context, resources, and expertise, disseminating research that advances teaching and learning, educational development, and postsecondary education. Aligned with UCalgary’s commitment to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), we advocate for inclusive and responsible engagement with research and scholarly work that goes beyond metrics to represent other forms of impact.
Growing Leadership
We believe that shared, strategic, and collaborative leadership approaches are key to meaningful decision-making, transformation, and change in postsecondary education. We bring our scholarly experience and wisdom of practice to identify gaps and lead initiatives to influence change at multiple, interconnected levels across postsecondary teaching and learning ecosystems. We model leadership approaches that are grounded in building trust and relationships across the academic community. And we are advocates in leadership spaces, working to break down systemic barriers and influence meaningful change in teaching and learning. We lead by sharing our expertise, providing diverse support and resources, and partnering collaboratively to empower leadership at all levels of the university.
Reflecting Critically
We commit to engaging in critical self-reflection, examining our own positionality and assumptions, and modelling reflexivity in our practice. We believe that critical reflection is essential to fostering growth, enhancement, and innovation in teaching and learning, as well as professional practice. We encourage the development of teaching and learning expertise that is grounded in seeking and learning from feedback and responding to emerging scholarship and contexts.
Acting Intentionally
We inform and adapt our actions by applying the latest scholarship, using the best available evidence, and continually engaging in an action-reflection cycle to be intentional in our individual and collective educational development approaches. By acting intentionally, we strategically concentrate on aspects of practice that are of greatest importance, have a meaningful impact, and are relevant to our community in achieving the goals and priorities of the university and society.