Teaching Support

What is Instructional Design?

Instructional design is a multidisciplinary field focused on the systematic creation of learning experiences. This work relies on the science of teaching, the science of learning, and emerging best practices to develop effective and engaging experiences. While instructional designers consult on the development, delivery, and evaluation of teaching, they do not assess the quality of the content. The subject matter expert chooses the “what” of learning, and the instructional designer advises on the “how” of learning.

To set up a one-on-one consultation with an instructional designer, visit our Consultations page or use the quick link to the right.

CTRL Teaching Resources

Creating a System of Peer Observation of Teaching

Interested in participating in Peer Observation? Want to research how to make it the most impactful? Take a look at this PDF guide for some ideas to integrate into your own process.

The CTRL Beat

A blog for faculty, by faculty. The CTRL Beat is an online space where all AU faculty can explore insights and contribute to the growing conversation on teaching, learning, and research in higher education.

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.

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.

Faculty Guide to Free and Open Source Software

The Faculty Guide lists some free and open source solutions to common software needs and includes software freely available on campus.

Midsemester Feedback Services

As we approach the midterm of the semester our students have a clear understanding of how our courses are structured and what to expect. This is the perfect time to elicit formative feedback from students. The Center for Teaching, Research & Learning (CTRL) is available to facilitate a discussion with your students and provide you with a Midsemester Course Analysis.

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.

Online Learning Resources

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.

SoTL

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

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.

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.

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.