Carnegie Mellon University

Eberly Center

Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

Our Job Is to Help You Be Successful in Your Teaching!

As experienced teachers, we know how complex and challenging teaching can be. As teaching consultants, we know the research on learning and how to apply it to help you find ways to be more effective and efficient. Come talk to us!

Teaching Consultations

Meet 1-on-1 with an Eberly colleague for help with any aspect of teaching and learning. 

Educational Technology

Explore effective and innovative strategies for teaching with technology.

Workshops & Special Interest Groups

Learn about research-based teaching strategies and discuss teaching with faculty colleagues.

Teaching Observations

Receive confidential feedback on your teaching and what transpires in your classroom.

Learning Data Services

Get assistance in collecting, analyzing, and interpreting learning data for your course or program.

Early Course Feedback: Focus Groups

Gather detailed feedback on your students' learning experiences via a brief group interview with students during class.

Teaching Consultations

We offer confidential, individual consultations to faculty colleagues concerning any teaching issue, large or small. For example, an Eberly colleague can help you:

  • design or re-design a course or syllabus,
  • identify teaching strategies aligned with your teaching and learning goals,
  • effectively and efficiently implement evidence-based teaching strategies,
  • generate creative ideas for assignments, projects, and classroom activities,
  • develop assessments and rubrics to measure and provide feedback on learning, and
  • plan and implement assessments for education-related grant proposals or research.

We can also help you trouble-shoot more complex teaching problems by gathering relevant information, helping you interpret it, and working with you to generate effective solutions. Our goal is to tailor the teaching consultation to meet your needs.

Note that teaching consultations are voluntary and confidential. We do not disclose any information from our consultations to other parties. We do, however, document the teaching consultation process for your purposes, to be used as you see fit.

Contact the Eberly Center if you would like to talk one-on-one with an Eberly colleague about any issue related to teaching or learning.


 

Educational Technology

The Eberly Center is the hub for faculty and program-level support in the area of technology-enhanced teaching and learning. Eberly colleagues work with individual faculty and programs to:

  • identify appropriate educational technologies and effectively incorporate them into a course or program,
  • adapt programs, courses or individual learning activities for online or blended/distance teaching,
  • flip a classroom to maximize student learning,
  • leverage opportunities to collect data for iterative improvement,
  • design new, interactive learning experiences or digital educational materials (videos, tutorials, etc.),
  • optimize use of university-supported educational technologies (Blackboard, TurnItIn, etc.)
    and more!

Our goal is to tailor our educational technology support to meet your needs.

Program-level services regarding educational technology include:

  • guidance selecting platforms and tools to meet curricular needs
  • customized workshops and faculty retreats
  • models for effective online learning experiences
  • support for curricular and course design
  • program assessment support (e.g., design, implementation, and ongoing improvement)
  • consultation on grant proposals and research to investigate impacts of educational technology.

Contact the Eberly Center if you would like to talk one-on-one with an Eberly colleague about any issue related to educational technology.


 

Workshops & Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

Faculty Seminars

Open to faculty of all disciplines and ranks, these 90-minute, interactive sessions: (1) synthesize and distill relevant research findings on teaching and learning; (2) disseminate teaching innovations; (3) model and share practical, evidence-based teaching strategies; and (4) provide lively venues for faculty to discuss teaching and learning with colleagues across disciplines. Topics vary each semester to meet emerging faculty needs and interests.

Faculty Special Interest Groups (SIGs)

SIGs bring together small, multidisciplinary, communities of faculty to explore teaching and learning topics in depth, beyond what is possible in single, stand-alone workshops. To help foster community around teaching, SIG participants commit to attend multiple sessions. SIGs may also require mild preparatory work before and/or between sessions. Eberly colleagues design and facilitate SIGs, tailoring programs to meet the emerging needs of CMU faculty.

Register here.


 

Teaching Observations

What is it?

When you request a teaching observation, an Eberly colleague observes your class—whether it is a lecture, discussion, lab, studio, recitation, or some other format.

An observation is voluntary and confidential.

Why do it?

An observation provides feedback from an outside perspective on the aspects of your teaching that interest you most. Consultants provide objective data regarding your classroom teaching behaviors as well as the observable behaviors of your students.

Faculty and graduate students request observations of their teaching to gauge how effective they are in the classroom, for example, because they are trying a new teaching technique, or because they are seeking to address a perceived problem.

For graduate students, completing two teaching observations satisfies one of the requirements for the Future Faculty Program.

When to do it?

You can request an observation at any time during the semester. Please contact us at least one week in advance so we can ensure that an Eberly colleague is available.

Contact the Eberly Center if you would like to talk one-on-one with an Eberly colleague about observing your class. 


 

Learning Data Services

We help both individual faculty and programs collect data to study their students’ learning outcomes, discover what works best, and guide improvements.

For example, Eberly colleagues can help you:

  • Design and implement an educational research study in your course
  • Plan and execute a curricular review – from analyzing program outcomes to mapping your curriculum to identifying/developing data workflows
  • Build data-collection/assessment into new educational projects from the start
  • Collect quantitative and qualitative data for your needs – from student work, focus groups, surveys, rubrics, and more
  • Assess student outcomes – at the course or program level – for learning improvement
  • Develop assessment plans for education-related grant proposals.

We can also consult with you on more complex data-intensive or assessment-related projects by gathering relevant information, helping you articulate measurable goals, and working with you to generate effective and feasible strategies.

Note: We provide learning data services to support iterative improvement of CMU courses and programs, not to summatively evaluate them. This means that we will work with you to collect actionable data and that we consider all results in a constructive manner – to increase understanding of teaching and learning at CMU and/or to inform targeted improvements. This approach also means that the process is often not “one and done” but rather involves an iterative cycle of designing and executing a data-collection plan, taking action based on the results, and then collecting further data to assess impact.

Contact the Eberly Center if you would like to talk with an Eberly colleague about any issue related to learning data or assessment.


 

Early Course Feedback: Focus Groups

What is it?

While your course is in progress, a focus group is an efficient way to gather rich information from your students on how your course supports their learning.

When you request a focus group for your course, an Eberly colleague holds an informal interview session with your students during class when you are not present. The Eberly colleague asks your students about their experiences and perceptions of learning in your course. He/she solicits alternative perspectives and assess consensus for each discussion point raised.

Focus groups are voluntary and confidential and student responses are anonymous.

Why do it?

A focus group can be useful for gathering information about a particular issue or as a general "check in" on how your course is going.

The feedback you receive is frank, revealing, and constructive, so you can make targeted adjustments while your course is still in progress.

When to do it?

You can request a focus group at any point in the semester. However, we recommend 3-5 weeks into a full semester course and 2-3 weeks into a mini course, so that students have enough experience with the course and you still have time to make adjustments.

Contact us at least one week in advance so we can ensure an Eberly colleague is available.

Contact the Eberly Center if you would like to talk one-on-one with an Eberly colleague about requesting a focus group.