About The Office of Teaching & Learning
A supportive place to find assistance to better your teaching. Our reach is broad, encompassing all subject areas and interdisciplinary approaches to education. The Office of Teaching and Learning offers a group of educational experts and affiliated faculty and staff who work to develop successful programs that help you help your students learn.
Mission
Creating and sharing best practices to enhance inclusive learning and teaching.
Vision
Teaching excellence for improved learning.
Values
Good teaching practices support student success and great teachers commit to professional change. We introduce you to, and provide training in, teaching models that enhance student learning. Engaging students in the learning process produces better results.
We Believe In:
Collaboration
An essential element in maximizing improvement of student learning. Collaboration enables OTL to do more than it could do alone. It also allows us to be aware of the needs of our internal and external stakeholders, meeting your educational needs through campus-based professional development.
Inclusivity
A university-level initiative. OTL recognizes the importance of ensuring all classrooms use practices that intentionally create an environment of belonging to meet the needs of all learners.
Diversity
Goes hand-in-hand with inclusivity, assuring multiple perspectives and voices are represented in designing educational experiences and deliberate inclusion of diverse individuals in these experiences.
Excellence
The constant goal of both the work of OTL and the instructional practices of the educators we serve. Excellence is not an endpoint but rather an opportunity for continuous improvement.
Innovation
An ongoing shift of best-practices as research evolves. It also refers to the importance of knowing the educational needs of stakeholders and identifying the best ways to meet those needs.
How Our Office Has Evolved Over The Years
Here is a look at some of the major changes the Office of Teaching and Learning has gone through over the years.
2025 - Continued Learning
Continued Learning becomes the new name for the former Distance and Continuing Education program. The program welcomed the addition of events and workshops for K-12 students as well as a catalog of new workforce development opportunities. Several new staff members were brought on in anticipation of this change and to accommodate the growing selection of learning opportunities.
2015 - Office of Teaching and Learning
In July of 2015, the Office of Distance and Continuing Education (DCE) merged with several independent offices on the NDSU campus to form the Office of Teaching and Learning (OTL) at North Dakota State University (NDSU). As it was no longer a stand-alone office, DCE became a program offered through the Office of Teaching and Learning.
Staff members from the former Office of Distance and Continuing Education became part of the new Office of Teaching and Learning, bringing with them roughly 200 collective years of experience and extensive knowledge about professional development and continuing education at NDSU. The DCE staff continued to serve you with the same level of care and customer service as before and the professional development and continuing education units offered maintain the same level of quality.
Office of Distance and Continuing Education
DCE underwent a name change from the former Office of Continuing Education. At this time, this was a non-profit, self-support office, which means the programs and services offered generated all the income to support all the programs and services we offered. During this time the office managed the details of the online degree programs offered at NDSU in addition to K-12 professional development and a robust continuing education program.
Office of Continuing Education
This office has records of offering courses and programs spanning as far back as the mid-1960s.
Needless to say, we have a long track record of providing high-quality professional development and other learning events.