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The Centre for Learning and Teaching ??Development (CLTD) vision is to enhance the national and global reputation of the University of the Witwatersrand by providing innovative support for learning and teaching. CLTD works with both staff and students to ensure that WITS continues to improve the quality of education it offers and the research it produces.

Our principles and beliefs

We nurture and accept conditions that promote agency and creativity in order to endorse critical thinking, purposeful research-informed trialling or experimenting, re-discovery, renewal and innovation in African Higher Education contexts. We do this because in the past we have tended to accept learning and teaching solutions borrowed from elsewhere, often divorced from our own contexts.

Our distinctive approach to student learning, university teaching, and research promotes a “non-judgmental” culture as the basis for the creation of transformative and creative communities, where tensions and diversities of opinions are welcomed as norms, but where independent thought and opinion merges with the concept of recognising the other as one recognises self - not as 'more' or 'less'. In this context, there is a genuine meeting of the minds where knowledge production is inward and outward looking, resulting in authentic collaborations and partnerships locally, nationally, and internationally. Our fundamental ideal is that of ‘trust’ and ‘acceptance’, where we all become culturally, socially, and environmentally responsible in our diverse aspirations of providing academic support. We are rooted in Johannesburg with its strong cosmopolitan edge, and we intend using this to our advantage, to ensure that the city is both the focus for our teaching and research work, and the platform from which our local and international relationships grow.

Mandate

The Centre for Learning, Teaching, and Development (CLTD) strives to improve students' learning experiences towards improved student learning outcomes. We do so by supporting the continuous academic professional learning of Wits academic staff as they progress through their careers. We offer relevant, inclusive, flexible, accessible learning opportunities about university teaching and student learning, allowing academics to suit their professional learning to their academic responsibilities. Together with CLTD, academics can learn about evidence-based design, development, implementation, and review of self-regulated learning- and student-centred curricula.

CLTD offers:

• Formal programmes such as the PG Dip (Education) in the field of Higher Education
• Informal workshops on, for example, curriculum design, development, and implementation, undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, and assessments.
• Support for academics, mostly through hands-on workshops, to design and develop blended and fully online courses
• Support for peer evaluation of and self-reflection on courses and teaching

Vision

Our vision is to inspire, influence, and contribute to the development of transformative, effective, and innovative facilitation practices that enhance student “access with success” in meaningful higher education practice.

Mission

We collaborate with individuals, academic departments, and academic support units to build capacity and foster community development around good university teaching, and the stimulation of an institutional culture that values meaningful learning, guided by the Wits Learning and Teaching Plan 2025-2029.

To achieve the CLTD mission, we strive to:

• Enrich the status of learning and teaching at Wits by engaging with, encouraging, and celebrating Wits' university teachers
• Support academics as university teachers and researchers, and explore, integrate, and evaluate different approaches to learning, teaching, & assessment
• Promote inclusivity and diversity through collaborative curriculum design and renewal
• Promote and support the adoption of evidence-based relevant, inclusive, flexible, accessible approaches and practices to learning, teaching, and assessment
• Promote university-wide Communities of Practice (CoPs) to nurture a culture of professional learning about student learning and  university teaching
• Promote and support peer evaluation of and self-reflection on courses and teaching
• Promote and develop a culture of research and scholarship of learning and teaching (SoLT) in Higher Education
• Anticipate and address evolving issues and opportunities within Higher Education academic practice by offering expertise locally, nationally, and internationally

Foregrounding our strategic and operational plan

In developing our operational plan, four drivers have emerged as key in achieving our goals for CLTD. These will underpin our service and support delivery over this year, including:

• A collaborative approach in provisioning learning programmes in partnership with others locally, nationally, and internationally
• A commitment to the continuous professional learning of CLTD staff
• Our scholarship and research and its growing impact on the Higher Education landscape, and
• Modelling the application of, and engagement with educational technologies in providing evidence-based relevant, inclusive, flexible, accessible blended  and online learning opportunities for our course participants