Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

University of Mississippi

Services

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The primary purpose of the Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning is to improve student learning at The University of Mississippi by promoting and supporting exemplary  teaching. The Center serves all members of the teaching community including tenure-track faculty, non-tenure-track faculty, visiting faculty, adjunct faculty, and graduate teaching assistants and instructors. We also consult with departments and other campus units on initiatives to enhance teaching and learning.

To request any of the services below, please email us at cetl@olemiss.edu. To learn more about other CETL offerings, please visit our Programs and Events pages.

For Individuals

CETL teaching consultants are available to work with individual members of the UM teaching community to help them develop and refine their teaching practices. Consultations are formative in nature and are provided on a voluntary, confidential basis. 

Teaching consultations can address a range of topics, from syllabus and course design to fostering student participation and engagement to the effective use of technology in teaching to the design of assessments and assignments. If you’re encountering a problem or challenge in your teaching or you’re just interested in continuing your professional development as an instructor, CETL consultants can help.

You may also wish to request a consultation focused on one of the specific reflective practices below:

  • Classroom Observations – You can request a consultant to observe you teach and then meet with you to help you consider your strengths as a teacher and identify opportunities for improvement. 
  • Student Feedback Session – Consultants can meet with your students during class for 15 or 20 minutes to gather feedback on what aspects of instruction are helpful to their learning and what might be changed to help them learn more effectively, then share that feedback with you during a consultation.
  • Analysis of Student Evaluations – A teaching consultant can meet with you to review your end-of-semester evaluations and help you identify teaching strengths to build on and instructional changes to make in the future.
  • Teaching Documentation and Career Development – If you need to document your teaching, perhaps through a teaching philosophy statement or teaching portfolio, for a job search or personnel review, CETL consultants can provide feedback on your documents and how they might best reflect your teaching.

For Departments and Schools

Department and school leadership are encouraged to utilize the pedagogical expertise and facilitation skills of CETL staff for any number of teaching and learning initiatives. CETL consultants can help departments and other units by…

  • Advising on best practices for the evaluation of teaching, including peer evaluation,
  • Facilitating course and curriculum (re)design processes, 
  • Offering tailored workshops for faculty and graduate instructors on teaching and learning topics of interest,
  • Gathering feedback from students in a program to guide in program revision, and
  • Consulting with academic leaders on challenging issues in teaching and learning.

In accordance with the best practices for educational development set forth by the Professional and Organizational Development Network, CETL maintains confidentiality for all of these services.