Programs for New Faculty

CRLT in Engineering provides programming for faculty new to the College of Engineering. Topics covered include services provided by CRLT-Engin, the teaching portfolio, writing the NSF CAREER proposal, strategies for success as new faculty, and mentorship opportunities with senior faculty. Each fall, the central CRLT office also organizes the campus-wide New Faculty Orientation which includes opportunities for faculty to share experiences and strategies about good teaching.

Midterm Student Feedback Sessions and Other Classroom Interventions

CRLT-Engin collects student feedback for instructors who wish to assess and improve their teaching during the term. A CRLT-Engin consultant observes the class and then confers with the students about what is going well and what changes would improve their learning. The consultant later meets with the instructor to report findings and discuss strategies for change. Getting student feedback can be particularly helpful for instructors with little classroom experience, those engaging with an unfamiliar cohort of students, or those teaching a new course or one that has been substantially redesigned. Results of a research project conducted for the College of Engineering show that the midterm student feedback sessions result in significant gains in student ratings and improvements in faculty teaching practices. CRLT-Engin also conducts consultations based on quantitative student feedback collected at midterm or on videotapes of class sessions.

Consultations on Proposal Preparation

CRLT-Engin provides assistance and expertise to help individuals plan, implement, analyze, and disseminate innovations in education. Potential consultation topics include:

• Designing an assessment or evaluation plan for a proposed educational project;
• Preparing the statement of broader impact for NSF grant proposals; and
• Planning and articulating a well-informed educational section for the NSF CAREER proposal.
  Slides providing a general overview about the CAREER proposal are available online (PPTX file) and slides providing the perspective of an NSF program officer are also available online (PPTX file). Both sets of slides are from a recent CRLT-Engin workshop.

Consultations on Issues Related to Teaching and Learning

CRLT-Engin is available to help instructors develop, innovate, or strategize about their teaching or to problem solve around difficult issues that arise in the classroom. Engineering faculty may be particularly interested in:

• Incorporating innovative pedagogical approaches and evaluating their impact;
• Developing a teaching portfolio or statement of teaching philosophy; and
• Integrating active or cooperative learning into large lecture classes.

CRLT-Administered Grants

CRLT administers several grant competitions in collaboration with the Provost's Office for those faculty wishing to pursue education-related initiatives and scholarship at the U-M. (Complete descriptions of each competition can be found at CRLT's web site www.crlt.umich.edu.) In many instances, these projects serve as seed money for more extensive proposals to external funding agencies. Engineering faculty have been very competitive for these grants and have been awarded funding to pursue projects such as updating a major design course, evaluating the impact of a newly introduced instructional technology on student learning, and developing a course in socially relevant computing.