Supports

Consultations

CTE offers individualized, non-evaluative, and confidential consultations for faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and other instructors across campus. Collaborative and formative, consultations are tailored to specific interests and needs and may be highly-targeted or include an overall assessment of teaching strengths and areas of growth. Short-term or ongoing, consultations can be used to brainstorm about any aspect of teaching, including course design, instructional methods, addressing feedback or challenges, and more.

Classroom Observations

Faculty, postdoctoral scholars, and other instructors across campus may request non-evaluative classroom observations by CTE staff to obtain formative feedback. Feedback is provided in the context of consultation (versus written format), and CTE classroom observations are intended to be formative and independent of the RTP process.

Small Group Instructional Diagnosis

Instructors may arrange to have trained faculty facilitators attend a mid-semester class session and lead students in a 20- to 30-minute feedback-gathering exercise. Using open-ended questions, SGID are designed to invite students to identify issues helpful in their learning and improvements that could be made in a particular course. SGIDs are most appropriate when instructors sense room for improvement, aim to better understand student perspectives, could benefit from a process that is more in-depth than a paper-pencil method, and/or hope the process will positively impact their or students’ motivation.

Teaching Partnerships 

This initiative connects faculty from across campus to support and enhance their teaching. CTE will pair faculty in all stages of their careers based on their needs and preferences to promote attention to effective teaching and learning through formative, collaborative experiences.

Activities encouraged as part of teaching partnerships include: 

• Set up regular “check-in” meetings to debrief about recent teaching 
• Review and discuss teaching strategies and/or materials specific to particular topics, lessons, or units 
• Act as a sounding board for each other when brainstorming new approaches to teaching or student evaluation 
• Support and encourage each other in incorporating new teaching strategies in your classes 
• Observe each other’s teaching 
• Make time to celebrate teaching successes together 
• Attend any number of CTE-sponsored events that promote conversations about teaching and learning that benefit your partnership (see CTE calendar for relevant events and dates) 

Innovation Initiatives

Innovation Initiatives are designed to enhance education quality and address emerging issues through innovative teaching, learning, and research approaches that foster creativity and experimentation. A call for proposals guides the application process and will appear in a CTE weekly email.

Recent Innovation Initiatives

• Advancing Teaching and Learning with Artificial Intelligence (AI), Summer 2024—Spring 2025. Co-sponsored by the Center for Teaching Excellence and the Office of Undergraduate Education and Faculty Affairs (UEFA).

Summer Pedagogy Development Initiatives

CTE Summer Pedagogy Development Initiatives encourage faculty to explore and implement innovative teaching practices by providing support in the form of funding for materials or time. A call for proposals guides the application process and will appear in a CTE weekly email.

Take-Me-There Teaching Improvement Travel Stipend

Full-time faculty may apply for funding, when available, money to attend a conference, workshop, or other learning opportunity that is intended to directly improve your teaching. A call for proposals guides the application process and will appear in the CTE weekly email.