Carnegie Mellon University

Eberly Center

Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

We Work With

All faculty members and postdocs who teach (e.g., tenure-track, teaching-track, visiting, adjunct) and graduate students (e.g., teaching assistant, instructor, and future faculty) who want to reflect on and improve their teaching. This includes those who are:

  • new to Carnegie Mellon and want to calibrate to our students and the institution.
  • experienced and successful teachers who want to try new techniques, approaches or technologies.
  • encountering difficulties in their courses and want help identifying and addressing problems.
  • new to teaching and want help getting started (including graduate students who anticipate pursuing an academic career).

Our Approach Is

Learner-centered  We put student learning at the center of the teaching process, helping CMU educators to develop course objectives, assessments, and instructional activities that together support and promote inclusive and equitable student learning and experiences.

Inclusive  We center diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) in all of our services and programs.  

Educational  We help CMU educators gain a deeper understanding of the evidence-based principles that underlie effective learning and teaching so that they can make appropriate teaching decisions for their own courses. We do not simply dispense teaching tips.

Collaborative  We work closely with CMU educators to help them identify their strengths as teachers and mentors and to jointly devise strategies for course improvement, inclusive practices, and educational innovation.

Constructive  We focus on providing constructive, practical, and actionable feedback to help our colleagues succeed as educators. Our role is to support teaching, not to judge performance.

Data-driven  We help CMU educators to innovate and iteratively enhance the impact of their teaching and educational programs by collecting, analyzing, and interpreting information from classroom observations, teaching materials, student focus groups and surveys, and direct measures of student learning.

Research-based  We distill, synthesize, disseminate, and apply research integrated from a range of disciplines to help CMU educators design and teach more effective courses and applications of technology-enhanced learning strategies. We also help CMU educators to conduct educational research in their disciplines where gaps in the literature exist. Additionally, we use action research to study and refine the impacts of our own educational development programs and services.

Community-building  We connect and foster dialogue among educators across disciplines and teaching contexts to cultivate and sustain communities of practice and a culture of teaching at CMU.   


We Offer

  • Individual consultations and group programs with CMU educators on evidence-based teaching strategies, technology-enhanced learning, assessment of student outcomes, and DEIB in teaching and learning.
  • An award-winning website with practical information on teaching and learning, which includes a tool to help instructors diagnose and solve their own teaching problems.
  • Resources for CMU educators, including sample syllabi, grading rubrics, objectives, policies, etc.
  • Collaboration with CMU colleagues to facilitate teaching innovation and applied educational research in CMU courses and programs.

Consultations Are

Strictly confidential  We do not disclose any information from our consultations. This includes the identities of those with whom we work, the information they share with us, and data we gather on their behalf via classroom observations and interactions with TAs and students.

Documented for CMU educator purposes alone  We provide written feedback to the colleagues with whom we consult that summarizes and documents the consultation process. We do not write letters of support for reappointment, promotion or tenure, but faculty can choose to use our documentation as they see fit.

Voluntary  We do not seek out CMU educators, but we are happy to meet with anyone who contacts us.


Contact the Eberly Center to request a confidential teaching consultation.