Newsletters - Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence

September 2025

Good morning, everyone and welcome to a new academic year! This month’s newsletter from the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE) includes a resource for promoting students’ ethical and responsible use of generative AI; information about and registration information for our September and October events and guest speakers; and the link to request a CTLE consultation.

STUDENT GENERATIVE AI USAGE DISCLOSURE STATEMENTS

Here’s our #1 tip for promoting students’ academic integrity regarding their use of generative AI: include an AI Disclosure Statement as part of relevant assignments and assessments. We’ve put together this quick overview, which includes access to Disclosure templates that you can adapt to your class: AI Usage Disclosure Statements.

Asking students to disclose their AI usage as part of an assignment is one of the five steps recommended by scholar of online and equitable teaching, Flower Darby, in this excellent Faculty Focus article: 5 Steps to Update Assignments to Foster Critical Thinking and Authentic Learning in an AI Age.

SEPTEMBER 2025 PROGRAMS

Several of our Fall Semester programs are already at maximum capacity but there are still spaces available in these upcoming workshops and programs:

Guest Speaker: Michelle Miller, “Remembering Names: Techniques Anyone Can Learn”

Learning students’ names in a timely fashion and with correct pronunciation is a key technique for setting a welcoming, personalized, and engaging classroom atmosphere. However, most people struggle with learning names, due to the characteristics of human cognitive and memory systems. Led by guest presenter Michelle Miller, This workshop leads participants through effective strategies for name learning, drawing on the presenter’s background in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics and her recent book A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can (University of Oklahoma Press). Read more about her work in this Chronicle of Higher Education interview: How Can Professors Learn Students’ Names? A Scholar of Memory Shares Her Process. Dr. Michelle Miller is a cognitive psychologist, researcher, and speaker focused on supporting higher education faculty in creating effective and engaging learning experiences for students, author of Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology: Teaching, Learning, and the Science of Memory in a Wired World (West Virginia University Press, 2022) and a Professor of Psychological Sciences and President’s Distinguished Teaching Fellow at Northern Arizona University.

September 3, 3:00-4:30 p.m., Zoom

———————-

Information Sessions: “Evaluating Teaching Using the CTB Framework”

What is the Critical Teaching Behaviors (CTB) framework? As Lauren Barbeau and Claudia Cornejo Happel, authors of Critical Teaching Behaviors: Defining, Documenting, and Discussing Good Teaching, write on their website, the CTB Framework “defines instructional practices to create a shared understanding of good teaching by providing a concise synthesis of research-based teaching behaviors proven effective for improving student learning. It consists of six defined categories, representative behaviors, and documentation an instructor can collect as evidence of engagement in these behaviors.”

This Fall, the CTLE will offer four different in-person information sessions about using the CTB Framework, tailored to meet the needs of specific stakeholders on campus. Each 1.5-hour session will offer participants a “crash course” in utilizing this framework in order to better identify and document effective teaching practices. The first three people to sign up for a session will receive a free copy of the book when they attend the in-person session at 550 Bird Library (CTLE)!

You do not need to have the book to participate but reviewing the CTB website ahead of time would be helpful. In addition, if you would like to schedule an Information Session for your department, your P&T Committee, or other school/college group, just get in touch: Contact Us.

Teaching Professors Information Session: Using the Critical Teaching Behaviors Framework to Document Your Teaching Effectiveness

September 12, 3:00-4:15 p.m., 550 Bird Library (CTLE)

Tenure-Track Faculty Information Session: Using the Critical Teaching Behaviors Framework to Document Your Teaching Effectiveness

September 15, 2:00-3:15 p.m., 550 Bird Library (CTLE)

Associate Deans and Chairs Information Session: Using the Critical Teaching Behaviors Framework for Tenure and Promotion Reviews

September 16, 11:00 a.m.-12:15 p.m., 550 Bird Library (CTLE)

Chairs and Senior Faculty Information Session: Using the Critical Teaching Behaviors Framework for Peer Teaching Observations

September 17, 1:00-2:15 p.m., 550 Bird Library (CTLE)

———————

Workshop: “Inspiring Authentic Learning with Primary Sources from the Syracuse Art Museum Collections”

This workshop will begin with a brief overview of the SU Museum Collections and the opportunities it offers faculty to schedule a class visit and session at the Museum. Then we will explore how these class sessions draw on evidence-based, high-impact teaching practices for authentic learning and helping students build academic integrity skills. The remainder of the session will be participants workshopping assignments and syllabi for how to incorporate a Museum Collections visit into their class. Co-facilitated by Kate Holohan, Curator of Education at the SU Art Museum and Jessamyn Neuhaus, Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence. The workshop will take place at the SU Museum, and space is limited to 20 participants.

September 23, 2:00-3:00 p.m., Syracuse University Art Museum, Shaffer Art Building

———————

Workshop: “From Catalog to Classroom: Crafting Course Titles and Descriptions That Reflect Content and Attract Students”

Course titles and descriptions are often the first chance to connect with students, both current students navigating registration and prospective students exploring programs. Yet too often, they are written for internal audiences, filled with jargon, out of date, misaligned with actual course experiences, or just plain dull. This Zoom session, facilitated by Megan Oakleaf, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, School of Information Studies, and Lauren Juiliani, Director of Academic Operation, School of Information Studies, explores how faculty and administrators can revise course titles and descriptions to be more accurate, engaging, and student-centered. Drawing on examples and helpful strategies, we’ll discuss ways to make course information clearer, more appealing, and better aligned with learning outcomes. Participants will learn about one school’s experience in preparing faculty to update their course titles and descriptions and leave with a slide deck template for facilitating this process with their own faculty and staff.

September 24, 12:00-1:00 p.m., Zoom

———————

Coffee and Conversation: “Teaching in the Age of AI: Insights from National Conferences”

Join our new MP Faculty Fellow, Doug Yung, for coffee, snacks, and conversations about the insights and ideas he gleaned from three different professional development events during the summer: the Mudd Design Workshop (discussing AI as a tool for augmenting creativity in engineering design; the Virtues and Vocations Conference (exploring character formation and human flourishing in a world where AI is unavoidable), and the KEEN EML Workshop (examining inclusive teaching practices and curiosity-driven learning as a way to broaden participation in STEM). The common thread is that AI is not just about tools, but about rethinking creativity, ethics, and inclusion together. My goal would be to translate these insights into practical implications for Syracuse classrooms.

September 25, 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m., 550 Bird Library (CTLE)

OCTOBER 2025 PROGRAMS

Don’t wait to register! Several of our Fall Semester programs are already at maximum capacity but there are still spaces available in these upcoming October guest speaker events:

Workshop: “AI-Proof or AI-Ready: Crafting Resilient Assignments”

Dr. Doug Yung, one of the 2025-2026 Meredith Professor Faculty Fellows, and Teaching Professor of Medical and Chemical Engineering, will facilitate a hands-on studio for faculty to redesign one of their own assignments to better align with course learning outcomes. Using evidence-based frameworks and best practices, participants will explore how AI may be used or misused by students and develop strategies that preserve both rigor and creativity. Through guided activities such as role play, redesign challenges, and collaborative feedback, faculty will identify vulnerabilities and reimagine tasks that emphasize authentic learning. Each participant will leave with an AI-ready assessment draft and contribute to a shared library of models for the CTLE community. We will be offering two sessions of this workshop: one in-person and one via Zoom.

October 2, 12:45-1:45 p.m., 550 Bird Library (CTLE)
October 3, 11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Zoom

———————

Guest Speaker: Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe “Motivation and Student Writing in the Age of AI”

Dr. Emily Pitts Donahoe, Associate Director of Instructional Support in the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and Lecturer of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Mississippi will be presenting on the new and ongoing challenges of motivating students to engage in the work of learning how to write effectively in the age of generative AI.

October 8, 3:00-4:00 p.m., Zoom

———————

Guest Speaker Lunch and Learn: Teaching Large Classes with John Kane

Join Dr. John Kane, Distinguished Teaching Professor of Economics, Director of the SUNY Oswego Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, and host of the long-running podcast “Tea for Teaching,” for a discussion about how to implement active learning and other research-based pedagogical practices in large (100 or more) lecture classes. This session is limited to 12 participants. Registration closes October 1, 2025.

October 10, 12:00-2:00 p.m., 550 Bird Library (CTLE)

CONSULTATIONS

We are available to support and assist any instructor, at any stage of their career, with any teaching-related issues, including but not limited to syllabus review, designing assignments, soliciting and interpreting student feedback, and navigating student biases and stereotypes about professors. All consultations are entirely confidential. We do not initiate CTLE consultations with individuals at the behest of a third party such as Chairs or Deans. We do not share identifying information about consultations or participation in our public events with any other office, department, or program.