Teaching Support

The CTRL Teaching and Learning team is here to support American University faculty across the disciplines in the creation of exciting and fulfilling learning experiences for all AU students. As an expert in your discipline, you bring the “what” to teaching. Our team is here to help you apply the “how” by providing you with evidence-based best practices on teaching as a craft.

On this page, you will find research-based resources to further engage you in the development of your teaching practices. If there are resources we can create that would be useful for you and your department, please reach out to ctrl@american.edu with any recommendations.

CTRL Teaching Resources

CTRL Teaching Tips

This is our invitation to you to explore a collection of topics that can help enrich your teaching each. These resources are grouped in four categories to help you find the content that is most applicable: Preparing to Teach, Assessing Student Learning, Teaching Strategies, and Tech Tools.

Syllabus Guide

This Syllabus Guide includes items commonly included in course syllabi. You can view any of the individual topics for more detailed information and copy and paste the information into your syllabus as you see fit.

Teaching Portfolio Guide

A teaching portfolio provides an in-depth documentation of teaching that will allow you to showcase and contextualized your teaching, situated within your department, school, and field. Based upon the Beyond SETs Task Force’s work, there is a number of items you can include in your portfolio. CTRL has created guides that will be periodically updated to reflect best practices.

Accessibility Guide

This Accessibility Guide will help you create more accessible materials for your classroom and beyond. You can view any of the individual topics for more detailed information and directions.

Trauma-Informed Pedagogy Guide

The purpose of this guide is to equip you with tools and best practices for a trauma-informed pedagogy and classroom. As we return to in-person learning this fall after more than a year of online learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it is especially important for faculty to keep in mind how students might struggle, not only with their own trauma(s) but also with those experiences related to the pandemic.

Online Course Design

Are you teaching an online course next semester or in the near future? Join CTRL staff and your fellow faculty members to begin crafting the foundations of your online course. Learn more about our Online Learning Resources.

Time on Task for Remote Courses

CTRL is happy to provide a Time on Task guide for planning & teaching your remote course. The purpose of this guide is to help you make informed decisions about allocating student time and effort both during and outside the class periods.

Open Educational Resources

OER are available in a wide variety of disciplines, academic levels, and formats including textbooks, online quizzes, instructional modules, assignments, articles, interactive simulations, and image, video, and audio files.

SoTL

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) describes research in which we systematically assess our teaching practices.

CTRL Zotero Library

CTRL is happy to provide access to our team’s Zotero Library. Zotero is a citation management software for collecting research. Feel free to contact CTRL for question or suggestions for this research repository.