Teaching Resources for Faculty

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The Division of Arts & Humanities is committed to inclusive excellence in teaching and learning, and we encourage our faculty to make full use of the campus resources available to them.

New Faculty

A recommended starting point is the comprehensive New Faculty Guide created by the Center for Teaching and Learning

bCourses and Supported Digital Tools

bCourses (Canvas) is our official learning management system. You can learn about its features on our Getting Started guide.

Using Supported Learning Tools that are vetted and approved by campus helps to ensure accessibility, equity, privacy, and support. The Digital Learning Services (DLS) team provides assistance with course design, effective content transformation for hybrid and online formats, engaging synchronous learning experiences, and expert digital media design, production, and editing. Schedule a consultation to discuss tools and services supported by the DLS team.

Accommodations

The Academic Accommodations Hub is the student and instructor portal for support resources and academic policies, including key information regarding academic accommodations as well as links to mental health resources, resources for survivors of sexual violence and sexual harassment, and more.

The Disabled Students Program (DSP) is dedicated to fostering an inclusive learning environment for students with disabilities and equips them with the appropriate accommodations in the classroom. The Instructor Guide to DSP Accommodations explains how DSP works and what is expected of faculty.

Courses of Instruction (COCI)

The Courses of Instruction (COCI) committee, housed within the Academic Senate, approves new courses and modifications to existing courses. Their handbook provides guidelines for the course approval process.

Workshops

Research, Teaching, and Learning (RTL) has curated a diverse range of workshops to equip you with the essential teaching tools and best practices to help you excel in your teaching endeavors. Check out the RTL events calendar for upcoming events.

Collaboration and Extradepartmental Teaching Opportunities

Compass Courses

As the flagship courses of the Division, Compass Courses offer new undergraduate students the opportunity to learn from a team of arts and humanities faculty members in a dynamic format that explores a shared theme or topic using the various methods and materials of their respective disciplines. Compass Course awards support instructors who teach a Compass Course with generous research funds, course enrichment funds, and GSI support. 

L&S Curricular Connections

Courses sponsored by L&S Curricular Connections encourage undergraduates to expand their academic horizons beyond their fields of study. Freshman and Sophomore Seminars counterbalance the large lecture courses in which lower-division students often enroll. Big Ideas courses fulfill breadth requirements, are designed with non-majors in mind, and are co-taught by two or more faculty from different L&S departments. Discovery Courses are deliberately designed as breadth courses by expert faculty to appeal to non-expert students. 

Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program

The Undergraduate Research Apprentice Program (URAP) pairs faculty who need research assistance with undergraduates eager to engage in advanced research. For faculty who take on this serious mentoring role, small grants (up to $700 per academic year) are available to pay for expenses incurred in bringing the undergraduate into the project. Limited summer funds for student summer stipends are also available. For more information see the Faculty Handbook

Berkeley Language Center

The Berkeley Language Center supports teaching and research in language instruction. View their available resources on their website

Instructional Disruption

In the event of disruptive events like power outages, air quality events, earthquakes, public health emergencies, there are a number of resources to help faculty and graduate students ensure continuity of instruction. The Center for Teaching and Learning provides a list of steps you can take to ensure you can continue teaching in case a short- or long-term disruption emerges. The center also describes best practices for delivering remote instruction. 

Remote Examinations

As with any good exam, exams delivered remotely should challenge learners to combine the skills, abilities, and knowledge gained through the course to perform a specific task. Students should be assessed on the quality of their answers and the process they used to arrive at their answer. This approach is aligned with the Council on Education for Public Health’s model for competency-based assessments. 

Please note that campus policy currently does not allow for external vendors (ProctorU, Examity, Honorlock, etc.) to be contracted for proctoring online exams, but instructional teams do have the option of proctoring students using Zoom. 

The Center of Teaching and Learning offers these strategies for Zoom proctoring.

The Berkeley Academic Senate has very helpful tips for remote non-proctored exams.

In the absence of remote proctoring options, concerns about cheating and exam validity can be reduced through the design of the exam. Some strategies to mitigate the absence of proctoring are suggested below:

  • Include an integrity pledge that students must digitally sign with their names and student ID numbers.

  • Offer more frequent lower-stakes assessments instead of infrequent high-stakes exams. 

  • Connect exam questions to course activities and other assessments (student paper, class project, previous discussion, lab) that the student has completed.