Our Mission
The Qatar Teaching & Learning Forum was established in 2018 to operate as a non-binding community of Education City faculty members and learning professionals from each university to:
Support the Qatar Foundation's Higher Education Strategy in ways appropriate for what the QTLF is;
Interconnect each Education City University's efforts for faculty teaching development; and,
Provide a leading example and precedent for inter-institutional community formation, collaboration, and communication across our shared campus.
We are an educational initiative that was founded in 2018. We are a multi-university initiative focused on fostering conversations about pedagogy and improving educational practices within Qatar Foundation. Our primary audience includes students, faculty, and staff across QF universities. We consist of 11 members, aiming to include at least two representatives from each QF university to ensure equitable participation and representation.
Who are we?
We facilitate various events and initiatives to foster collaboration and promote best practices in teaching and learning. Our primary function is to disseminate information about events across Education City, enabling coordination between QF universities. Additionally, we organizes workshops that support professional development for educators.
We host faculty development workshops on innovative teaching methods. The Creative Classroom: Teaching Creatively, Teaching Creativity was an online workshop designed to encourage creativity in education.
Our Badir event is an annual gathering that brings faculty and students together to discuss pedagogy and explore innovative teaching approaches. This event plays a pivotal role in advancing our mission by fostering meaningful dialogue and collaboration.
Our History
The idea for an Education-City-wide learning community around pedagogy began with a QF initiative: the “Innovation in Teaching Week” in February 2018. Why was this proposal developed? Because QF recognized that, even though we share a campus, each university is in many ways a separate, isolated entity. Many faculty members from any given school have not even visited the other schools. To promote cross-campus collaboration and to foster unity across Education City, QF has promoted “multiversity” courses, minors, and other initiatives. Indeed, despite disciplinary and geographical differences, the faculty in Education City share one thing: they all teach in this region. Focusing on pedagogy, therefore—especially on teaching innovations that arise from this context—is a logical and essential step toward further EC-wide conversation and collaboration.
In Fall 2017, QF staff person Janhvi Kanoria brought representatives from each school together to program a week-long series of lunchtime sessions on teaching and learning hosted by most of the campuses. “Innovation in Teaching Week” was considered a success by all who attended. Eager to sustain the momentum, two of those representatives, Anne Nebel (GU-Q) and Scott Curtis (NU-Q), went to QF in late Spring 2018 to propose an EC-wide committee on teaching and learning. With QF’s approval, they formed a committee in Fall 2018. The committee has representatives from each university.
The committee established the Qatar Teaching and Learning Forum (QTLF), a cross-campus initiative designed to promote conversations about pedagogy in Education City. While some EC universities have regular workshops on pedagogical topics, not all of them make teaching a priority in their schedule of events. QTLF provides not only a forum in which all EC-faculty can participate, but a slate that consistently addresses pedagogical challenges faced by all. In this regard, QTLF provides an important site for faculty development in a crucial area that may not be available to all faculty.
By engaging faculty and staff across Education City, the Forum hopes to develop a learning community devoted to creative and effective teaching methods in Education City classrooms.
Find Us On LinkedIn
“Qatar Teaching and Learning Forum; collaboration, innovation, and transformation of education for the betterment of all learners.”
