DCAL Mission

DCAL assumes primary responsibility for the professional development of Dartmouth's teachers. By cultivating a community of informed conversation about how people learn and promoting collaboration among educators, DCAL advances Dartmouth's mission to prepare students for life-long learning.

DCAL's Values and Objectives

• In pursuing its mission, DCAL serves all who engage in teaching at Dartmouth, including (but not limited to) faculty in all ranks, schools and disciplines, along with librarians, instructional technologists, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, deans, and directors.
• We are especially keen to promote collaboration amongst all educators in course design, execution and assessment.
• DCAL aims to help shift the culture of higher education from one that regards its mission as delivery of instruction to one that sees its task as producing learning. We are convinced that learning cannot be delivered; it must be newly constructed by each learner.
• We understand that frequent reflection and assessment are essential to effective learning both for teachers and learners.
• DCAL pays special attention to matters of diversity, focusing on the benefits, challenges, opportunities, and obligations such matters present in a residential learning community.

DCAL pursues its mission by

• Building a community of informed conversation about learning and teaching practices.
  • DCAL promotes collaboration and discussion between faculty members, future faculty and support services for teaching at Dartmouth.
  • DCAL collects, selects and distills published scholarship on teaching and learning and makes it available to the Dartmouth community.
• Orienting new faculty members and postdoctoral fellows to teaching at Dartmouth.
• Promoting the purposeful use of new media and information technology for teaching and learning at Dartmouth.
• Helping faculty members and future faculty, individually and in peer groups, assess the effectiveness of their teaching in order to promote continuous improvement.
• Encouraging and supporting research about teaching and learning.

DCAL was established with major gifts from Gordon Russell '55 and R. Stephen Cheheyl '67. DCAL is located in the east wing of Baker-Berry Library in Hanover, NH.