The Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) reports to the Office of the Provost and serves all faculty members at the University of Michigan. CRLT promotes a university culture that values and rewards teaching, respects and supports individual differences among learners, and encourages instructional environments in which diverse students can learn and excel. CRLT offers a comprehensive menu of services and programs for individual faculty interested in innovative approaches to teaching and effective ways to improve student learning. Academic leaders also collaborate with CRLT on customized programs for their departments, schools, or colleges. Faculty at UM-Flint and UM-Dearborn are welcome to participate in CRLT workshops, but are not eligible for CRLT grants. Faculty on the UM Dearborn campus can draw on services provided by The Hub for Teaching and Learning Resources, and the Thompson Center for Learning and Teaching supports faculty at UM-Flint. See also section 8.B.4 “Evaluations of Teaching.”

Programs for Individuals

• Orientations and Teaching Academies introduce faculty new to U-M to resources and communities of colleagues who can support their teaching. 
• Grants fund individual and collaborative groups of faculty experimenting with instructional innovations or studying aspects of student learning in their courses or programs. Instructors can also nominate creative approaches to teaching and learning for the annual Provost’s Teaching Innovation Prize. 
• Consultations with CRLT staff may be requested at any time on a broad range of topics such as: creating equitable learning environments, planning or revising courses, responding to classroom challenges, teaching with technology, testing and grading, interpreting student evaluations, and writing a teaching statement. Appointments can be made through the CRLT website or by emailing [email protected].
• Midterm Student Feedback services entail a classroom visit from a CRLT consultant who speaks with (or surveys) the students about strengths of the course and suggested changes. The faculty member and the consultant then meet to discuss the feedback and strategize about next steps. The service is completely confidential.
• Seminars and learning communities provide forums for exploring topics in teaching with colleagues from across campus. All seminars are interactive, solidly grounded in research on teaching and learning, and offer practical suggestions that participants may incorporate into their classrooms. Learning communities enable sustained engagement with specific topics, such as teaching large courses, teaching with GSIs, and embedding climate change in the curriculum.
• CRLT’s website and Publications offer a rich array of resources and present summaries of literature and recommendations for best teaching and learning practices. Teaching Strategies cover topics ranging from  syllabus and course planning, to equity-focused teaching, and grading and assessment.  

Services for Departments, Schools, and Colleges

• CRLT’s Foundational Course Initiative (FCI) convenes departmental teams of faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates to redesign large-enrollment courses that are pivotal to students’ academic and career trajectories. The initiative supports student success by promoting engaging, rigorous, and transformative learning experiences for all students.
• Customized Workshops and Faculty Retreats are designed in collaboration with academic programs, departments, schools, and colleges to respond to their specific needs.
• The CRLT Theatre Program uses theatrical case studies to seed reflection about issues that negatively impact inclusive classroom or institutional climate and to spark dialogue about strategies for addressing them. 
• Curriculum redesign and assessment services are guided by departmental priorities and focused on action. Typical projects involve assessing the effectiveness of an educational program or intervention, launching a process to design or enhance a curriculum, or preparing for accreditation or external review.  These services can include approaches grounded in learning analytics, such as analysis of student institutional data or visualizations of student pathways through a curriculum.
• Services for Graduate Students and Postdocs support graduate students in all stages of their teaching careers from training for their first teaching experiences through preparation for the academic job market. CRLT also helps individual departments design GSI training programs that are discipline specific, and the Center partners with Rackham Graduate School on Preparing Future Faculty programs.

For more information about any of these programs and services, contact CRLT at 1071 Palmer Commons, 100 Washtenaw Avenue, phone 764-0505, or e-mail <[email protected]>. See also the CRLT website at crlt.umich.edu.

Distance education is defined by the Higher Learning Commission as a formal educational process in which the majority of instruction occurs when student and instructor are not in the same place. Although many faculty members use instructional technology to allow students to do some of the work for individual courses from a distance, the role of distance education is constantly evolving at the University of Michigan.

Faculty who are interested in distance education should consult their department chairs and deans regarding the policies, priorities, and resources of their academic units. When questions arise about legal issues such as copyright, the Office of the Vice President and General Counsel (OGC) should be consulted. The Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) provides special assistance with pedagogical issues involved in distance education initiatives. See section 8.B.1 “Center for Research on Learning and Teaching.”

Coursera. U-M partners with other top universities in the world to offer a wide range of no-cost courses online through Coursera’s interactive platform. Coursera is a California-based online education company founded in 2012. For more information, see https://www.coursera.org/umich.

The Office of the Vice President for Communications publicizes a catalog of locations on campus that make audio and video podcasts available to the public. The catalog includes such topics as arts and the humanities; business, economics, and government; and science and technology.

Building on a long tradition at the University of Michigan, the Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning, named after U-M alumnus Edward Ginsberg, seeks to enable faculty on the Ann Arbor campus to integrate service into teaching and to conduct research responsive to community needs, engage students in community service and academic learning in order to promote civic participation, develop collaborative partnerships with communities, improve the quality of life in communities nationwide, and enhance the educational process.

The Center promotes “service as scholarship” through faculty activities such as:

• Consultation and technical assistance for faculty related to community-based service learning
• John Dewey Lecture Series
• Faculty instructional workshops on community-based research and service-learning pedagogy
• Faculty Instructional Grants, available to faculty members who integrate service into teaching
• Doctoral seminar on service learning
• Publication lending library
• “Service-Learning Course Design Workbook” (a complimentary copy is available to any U-M faculty or staff member on request)
• Workshops preparing faculty and students for participation in the community
• National peer-reviewed journal, the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning

The Center’s Faculty Council has responsibility to advise the Center on policy, planning, and program priorities. Located in a turn-of-the-century former residence near the heart of campus, the Center is a meeting place and activity center with facilities available for campus and community groups. Programs and grants are available to all faculty on the Ann Arbor campus.

Many schools and colleges use the Office of the Registrar system of student course evaluations called Teaching Evaluations. This system permits instructors to select questions to administer to the students in a given class from a large catalogue of choices. Some schools, colleges, and other academic units design common core questions for use in these or other questionnaires. Reports with statistical results of the responses and all individual student comments are provided to the instructors. In some academic units, the statistical reports are also sent to the dean or chair.

The Center for Research on Learning and Teaching (CRLT) can provide information about multiple methods of evaluating teaching, including peer review. CRLT’s instructional consultants also help individual faculty interpret their student ratings reports. See also section 8.B.1 “Center for Research on Learning and Teaching.”

The Office of the Registrar provides scantron scoring services for departments across campus using University of Michigan scantron forms. Our office supplies the blank forms, as well as processing for scoring and analysis services. These services are available for courses taught and students enrolled at the Ann Arbor campus.

The Office of New Student Programs provides resources regarding placement exams for new and transfer students.

For information about E&E’s role in teaching evaluations, see section 8.B.4 “Evaluations of Teaching.”

The Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies publishes two guidebooks: “How to Mentor Graduate Students: A Guide for Faculty in a Diverse University” and a companion handbook for graduate students, “How to Get the Mentoring You Want.” Rackham recognizes the important role mentoring plays within graduate education, and developed these handbooks to assist faculty and graduate students in forming mentoring relationships that are based on realistic goals, expectations and understandings of one another. Rackham offers a number of other resources related to mentoring and advising.

See Information and Technology Services website for information on instructional software and computing classrooms.

Also see the University’s Teaching and Technology Collaborative (TTC) website for learning and incorporating technology into teaching and learning.

In addition, the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching provides consultation services to individuals and departments in the integration of technology into teaching, including distance education.

The Michigan Learning Communities (MLC) encompass a number of programs designed to offer students a friendly, supportive, and close-knit learning community within the context of the larger University environment.

The College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) offers two four-year academic learning communities: the LSA Honors Program and the Residential College.  Other residential programs include the Global Scholars Program, the Health Science Scholars Program, the Lloyd Hall Scholars Program, the Michigan Community Scholars Program, the Max Kade German Residence Program, the Michigan Research and Discovery Scholars, the Women in Science and Engineering Residence Program (see also handbook section 2.C “Ann Arbor Campus Resources”), and the Adelia Cheever Program to prepare women for a leadership in a global society.

In addition, the University offers non-residential learning communities:  the University Mentorship Program, the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) (see also handbook section 2.C “Ann Arbor Campus Resources”), and the Comprehensive Studies Program.

These programs provide faculty with a wide range of contexts and opportunities to interact with students outside of the traditional classroom. For more information, contact the Office of the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education in LSA.

There are over 1200 student organizations at the University. Students’ experiences in these organizations are greatly enhanced by faculty involvement as advisors, resource persons, and guest speakers. To learn about student groups by discipline or academic area, contact the departmental administrator. In addition, the Office of Student Life maintains Maize Pages, the online U-M directory of student organizations.