Teaching Resources for Engaged Educators, or TREE, was a fully online faculty development certification program for UNT educators. TREE leveraged online training modules and focused on 11 important teaching proficiencies:

• Academic Integrity: “Promoting ethical classroom behavior”
• Assessment: “Measuring student learning”
• Classroom Teaching: “Facilitating effective learning experiences”
• Course Design: “Planning effective learning environments”
• Engaged Learning: “Motivating students through interaction”
• Experiential Learning: “Learning by doing”
• Learner-Centered Teaching: “Fostering student-ownership of learning”  
• Online Course Design: “Planning effective online learning environments”
• Online Teaching: “Facilitating effective online learning experiences”
• Student Learning: “Understanding how students’ brains work”
• Teaching with Technology: “Integrating effective instructional tools”                        

These self-paced online training modules consisted of three levels (introductory, intermediate, and advanced) in each of the above proficiencies. Participants received badges as they completed each level and received a Certificate of Accomplishment once they successfully completed all three levels of a proficiency.

TREE was freely accessible to all UNT educators via Blackboard. When the university decided to make the switch from Blackboard to Canvas, CLEAR decided to retire the TREE program and reformat the content into articles for the open website, UNT Teaching Commons. Teaching Commons continues the work of TREE by providing freely accessible support for teaching excellence at UNT.