Departmental Support - Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence

Featured CTLE Resources
Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTB) and Peer Observations
Pedagogy Pitstops
CTLE Service Spotlights
Workshops for Departments
Department Consultations
Contact Us
Further Reading: Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTB)
Further Reading: Peer Observations of Teaching

Featured CTLE Resources

CTLE Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTB) Presentation Handouts

CTLE Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTB) Presentation Slides

Writing About Teaching: Tips and Best Practices for Writing Faculty Evaluations (R&R Letters)

Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTB) and Peer Observations

Effective Fall 2026, the Office of Faculty Affairs has instituted a new policy stating that departments and chairs may no longer rely solely on student course evaluations when making employment-related decisions about teaching. The CTLE recommends using the Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTB) framework, based on the groundbreaking book Critical Teaching Behaviors: Defining, Documenting, and Discussing Good Teaching (Stylus, 2023) by Lauren Barbeau and Claudia Cornejo Happel, for identifying and documenting multiple sources and varied evidence of effective teaching. Additionally, CTB is a clear and widely applicable framework for departments who want to conduct thoughtful, strengths-based, and equity-minded peer observations of teaching. CTLE Director Jessamyn Neuhaus would be glad to come to your department, school, or college to give a short overview of the CTB approach, facilitate a discussion or workshop ideas about peer observations in your department, or consult with your department about how to collect, define, and maximize different types of evidence for documenting effective teaching.

Pedagogy Pitstops

A Pedagogy Pitstop is a short (10 minute or less), fast-paced presentation on a specific, high-impact, evidence-based teaching practice. It includes several immediately applicable teaching takeaways for faculty. The CTLE brings the Pedagogy Pitstop directly to you, and will present it during any regularly scheduled department (or program, school, or college) meeting. We currently offer the following Pedagogy Pitstop presentations:

Interactive Lecturing
Creating Connections with a Class Directory and First-Day Survey
Three Ways to Encourage Academically Honest Use of Generative AI
Structuring Successful Student Group Projects
Why Your Students Need a Midsemester Class Grade

CTLE Services Spotlight

A CTLE Services Spotlight is a short (10 minutes or less) overview of a programmatic or on-demand service that the CTLE provides to individual faculty, departments, programs, schools, or colleges. It includes registration links and other related information. We will bring the Services Spotlight to you during your regularly scheduled department (or program, school, or college) meeting. We currently offer the following Service Spotlight presentations:

How the CTLE Can Help You Document Your Teaching Growth Narrative
Improving Teaching Observations/Peer Teaching Reviews
Pro Tips for Applying to the CTLE’s Annual Course Redesign Institute (CRI)
Students Consulting on Teaching (SCOT) for Early Course Feedback
Using the CTLE’s Online Curated Collections of Teaching Resources

Workshops for Departments

We are happy to schedule a session of any previously offered CTLE workshop, and bring it to your department via Zoom or in-person in your building or at 550 Bird Library (CTLE). Our current workshop offerings include:

AI Usage Statement and Citations in Teaching and Learning
Assignments and Assessments in the Age of Generative AI
Classroom Phone/Device Policies
Co-Creating Classroom Community Agreements
The Critical Teaching Behaviors Framework for Evaluating Teaching
Fun to Grade and AI Outsourcing-Resistant: The Unessay
Increasing Student Learning During Class and in Assignments
Keep Your Teaching Batteries Charged
Learning Student Names
Planning for Learner Variability
Reflective Practices for Crafting a Growth Narrative and Mitigating Burnout
Supporting Student Success with Productive Error Course Design
Teaching in Tumultuous Times: The Value of Scripts
Teach with Your Strengths
A Welcoming Syllabus

Department Consultations

The CTLE is available for consultations with Chairs, department leaders and committees, and/or the whole department on any aspect of teaching and learning. Our goal as a thought partner and facilitator is to help your department have productive, positive discussions about pedagogy and classroom strategies, and to provide you with resources as requested in order to support your department members’ discipline-based pedagogical expertise and teaching practices.

For the 2026-2027 academic year, our MP Faculty Fellows are also available to consult with departments. Mark Brockway, Assistant Teaching Professor of Political Science, focuses on easy-to-implement active learning classroom activities, syllabus design, and student wellness. Zach Huitink, Associate Teaching Professor and a Birkhead-Burkhead Professor of Teaching Excellence in the Department of Public Administration and International Affairs, is an expert in course design and effective teaching in online asynchronous environments, and Doug Yung, Teaching Professor of Biomedical and Chemical Engineering is studying and facilitating pedagogical reflection on AI in teaching and learning.

Contact Us

If you would like to schedule a Pedagogy Pitstop or CTLE Services Spotlight for your department, program, school, or college meeting, or a workshop or consultation for your department, or if you have any questions about any of our departmental supports or services or would like to arrange a one-on-one consultation about other specific ways the CTLE might support your department, please complete this short form:

Schedule a Consultation