Our job is to help you be successful in your teaching

As experienced teachers, we know how complex and challenging teaching can be. As teaching consultants, we know the research on learning and how to apply it. Let's work together to help you find ways to become more effective and efficient in your teaching. Come Talk To Us!

NOTE: All offerings are voluntary and confidential.

Individual teaching consultations

We offer individual consultations to faculty colleagues concerning any teaching issue, large or small. For example, we can help you:

Revise learning objectives
Refine a course syllabus
Design or re-design a course
Generate creative assignment ideas
Develop rubrics for projects

We can also help you trouble-shoot more complex teaching problems by gathering relevant information, helping you interpret it, and working with you to generate effective solutions. Our goal is to tailor the teaching consultation to meet your needs.

Note that teaching consultations are voluntary and confidential. We do not disclose any information from our consultations to other parties. We do, however, document the teaching consultation process for your purposes, to be used as you see fit.

Contact the Eberly Center if you would like to talk one-on-one with an Eberly colleague about any issue related to teaching or learning.

Course Design

The Eberly Center’s web site offers in-depth information on a variety of topics related to teaching and learning. The sections that faculty tend to find most helpful are:

Design Your Course, which covers course and syllabus design
Teach Your Course, which covers instructional activities and classroom management
Solve a Teaching Problem, an interactive tool that helps identify possible reasons for problems and presents strategies tailored to these reasons
Assess Learning, which provides suggestions for assessing student learning and communicating your expectations and performance criteria
Guidelines for Teaching Portfolios, a downloadable document on the purpose and components of a teaching portfolio, with samples from Carnegie Mellon faculty

Teaching observations

Valuable feedback on your and your students’ behaviors when you teach

When you request a teaching observation, an Eberly colleague observes your class—whether it is a lecture, discussion, lab, studio, recitation, or some other format.

An observation is voluntary and confidential.

Why do it?

An observation provides feedback from an outside perspective on the aspects of your teaching that interest you most.

Faculty and graduate students request observations of their teaching to gauge how effective they are in the classroom, because they are trying a new teaching technique, or because they are seeking to address a perceived problem.

For graduate students, completing two teaching observations satisfies one of the requirements for the Future Faculty Program.

When to do it?

You can request an observation at any time during the semester. Contact us at least one week in advance before you would like an observation so we can ensure that an Eberly colleague is available.

Faculty Workshops

Tests: Tools for learning, not just assessment

Thursday, September 20, 3:00-4:30pm

Concerned about the amount of class time that goes to testing? Or wondering how to help students better prepare for tests? Recent psychological research has shown that practice tests (used in or out of the classroom) lead to more learning than students studying on their own. In this session, we will discuss the research on “test-enhanced learning” and the “testing effect” in order to generate strategies for making the most out of tests in our own teaching.

Collaboration: A focus on process, not just product

Wednesday, October 10, 10:30am-Noon

Many faculty want to include collaborative learning in their courses but encounter many questions along the way: How will I keep students “on task”? Does it matter how students are paired? In this session, CMU Prof. Carolyn Rose will join us in discussing various ways to promote more effective collaboration and, in turn, better learning (especially in STEM topics). As a group, we will then discuss effective strategies and important considerations for incorporating collaborative learning into our own courses – both via classroom activities and longer-term projects.

Explanation: A tak for students, not just instructors

Thursday, November 1, 3:00-4:30pm

It’s natural to think that giving explanations is the instructor’s responsibility or something students often do for each other. But students can also benefit from explaining material to themselves. In this session, CMU Prof. Vincent Aleven will join us in discussing what it means for students to “self-explain,” how to prompt students to do so, and why it promotes deep learning. We will then explore strategies for incorporating student explanations in our own courses.

Course and Syllabus Design

Tuesday, November 13, 1:30-3:00pm

In this session, we will analyze the syllabus as a window onto a course’s design, emphasizing the alignment among learning objectives, instructional activities, and assessments. We will discuss selected CMU syllabi, identifying key components they have share as well as variations in their content, form and style. Participants are encouraged to bring their own syllabi to facilitate further discussion and application of ideas.

Early Course Evaluations

Early feedback from your students about how your course supports their learning

An early course evaluation is a brief survey you give to your students so you can gather information about what to maintain and what to adjust in your teaching.

An Eberly colleague can help you at any step in this process—for example, adapting survey questions to meet your needs, choosing the right time to administer the evaluation, analyzing and interpreting the results, and debriefing with students.

Why do it?

An early course evaluation allows you to get feedback from students so you can decide on possible adjustments to make while your course is still in progress.

It is a relatively quick and easy way to elicit this feedback.

When to do it?

Schedule your early course evaluation 3-5 weeks into a full-semester course or 2-3 weeks into a mini course so that students have had enough experience with the course to provide comments and you still have time to make adjustments as needed.

Give students 10-15 minutes to complete the evaluation during class.

An efficient way to gather rich information about your course from the students' perspective.

When you request a focus group for you course, an Eberly colleague holds an informal interview session with your students when you are not present.

Why do it?

A focus group can be useful for gathering information about a particular issue or as a general "check in" on how your course is going.

The in-person and written feedback you receive is frank, revealing, and constructive.

When to do it?

You can request a focus group at any point in the semester, or more than one if follow-up is desired.

Ideally, we schedule focus groups during class, so a representative sample of students is present.

Focus groups are voluntary and confidential.