Certificate in College Teaching & Learning in Hispanic Serving institutions (CTL-HSI)
Deepen your cultural competence and transform your course into a model of culturally responsive teaching for Latinx students!
About the CTL-HSI Course
This is ESCALA's signature course that develops leadership in faculty teaching Latinx students. CTL-HSI was first offered in 2014 and remains, a decade later, the only teaching-based course in the U.S. that focuses on increasing Latinx student engagement and learning in the higher education classroom.
The ESCALA CTL-HSI is developed and taught by HSI (Hispanic Serving Institution) teaching faculty, so that it remains relevant and practice-focused.
The course follows best practices in professional learning by creating a cohort-based experience that includes coaching and a structured inquiry on a course faculty are actively teaching.
Registration Fee: $3,000 per person
2025 Retreat Options (pick 1 when registering)
Guacamole Week: June 10-13, 2025
Pico de Gallo Week: June 24-27, 2025
CTL-HSI Course Learning Outcomes
As a result of this course, participants will be able to:
Understand the historical context of your HSI and use several measure to critically evaluate with disaggregated data how well your HSI serves its Latino/a/x students, families, and surrounding community.
Get to know your Latino/a/x students' goals, identities, and needs in order to leverage their assets and interests in the same learning environment.
Identify how your own cultural background impacts your attitudes and values and behaviors as an instructor, and what cultural disconnects you have with your Latinx students.
Intentionally use validating, collaborative language to increase students' emotional engagement and motivation to learn from you and each other.
Develop a metacognitive understanding of your key content in order to help your novice learners develop expert understandings.
Set and communicate academically challenging learning goals and communicate these clearly to students. Provide them with a high level of positive support for them to reach these expectations.
Examine your patterns of interaction with students and how much practice they have with content to ensure that Latinx students are fully present at the learning table.
Use class time wisely to maximize students' engagement in deliberate cognitive practices that also model assessments.
Prevent early failure by using assessments that are low-stakes and policies that are intrusive and proactive.
Continuously calculate the equity index for assessment scores and other course success data, both for Latinx and other underserved students in order to identify and close course outcome gaps.
Attending THE Summer Retreat*
The course kicks off with a 4-day virtual teaching retreat (on Zoom) where you will join other HSI faculty in:
Experiencing our ESCALA model of Latinx cultural frameworks in action, in order to develop a core understanding of how to shift your learning environment for Latinx student success through small but powerful cultural changes;
Analyzing and interpreting disaggregated course outcomes in order to be able to track equity by race/ethnicity and gender;
Crafting a data-based inquiry project, to study the response of Latinx students to a culturally responsive change you will make in a course you teach in the fall.
*Retreat time includes a 2 hour pre-module on data analysis that needs to be completed by retreat start. Participants are given access to pre-module one month prior.
Example finished Escala Presentation.pdfCheck out the sample project above!
FALL and winter components
FALL COACHING SESSIONS AND pROJECT-RELATED ASSIGNMENTS
JULY - DECEMBER 2025 (2 hrs/mo)
July, Sept, Dec: One time per month, you'll meet with your coaching "cluster" to dig deeper into the implementation of your course changes for your project and discuss what you're finding out about your teaching and your Latinx students' learning.
Aug, Oct, Nov: In these months you'll visit the course Canvas site to complete readings, revisit summer learning, and continue self-reflections on your teaching practices using our teaching observation protocols.
Present Your findings
FEBRUARY 2026 (2 hours)
To complete the course, you'll present your inquiry project findings and learning about culturally responsive teaching in a 20-minute 'teach back' presentation to your coaching cluster and campus guests. This is held on Zoom.
After completing a final reflection and survey you'll receive your certificate and become qualified to become a facilitator or coach the following year.
Since 2013, more than 700 faculty in 2 and 4-year HSIs have completed ESCALA's CTL-HSI course. More than 60 of these alumni now serve as peer coaches for new cohorts.
CTL-HSI Course Timeline for 2025/2026
The program launches in June with a multi-day summer retreat where faculty engage in self-assessments of their own practice, encounter and discuss practical demonstrations of culturally responsive teaching, and participate in small group peer to peer discussions of how to implement changes in their own courses. After the summer retreat, faculty are coached in small groups throughout the fall semester/quarter as they are guided to continue reflecting on their teaching as well as study the impact of a teaching change on their Latinx students in real time through a systematic data-driven project. In February, the course culminates in a 20- min presentation of learning that brings in the whole campus to watch!
Over the June- Feb time period, faculty engage in 37 total hours of combined structured learning, independent reflective time on assignments, and coaching.
*36 TOTAL HOURS REFLECT OFFICIAL CONTACT TIME WITH ESCALA AND ESTIMATED HOURS TO COMPLETE REQUIRED ASSIGNMENTS. ADDITIONAL TIME IS LIKELY NEEDED FOR COLLECTING DATA AND REFLECTING ON ASSIGNMENTS.