How learning works
Faculty teaching and learning resources with diverse materials, tools, and services designed to enhance instructional skills, improve course design, and support student engagement and success.
Funding opportunities
In partnership with the Office of Sponsored Programs we can help you identify potential funding opportunities for your project. Or, on your own, you can explore the resources listed below to search for a sponsor and program that best suits what you are looking for.
Programs and other resource initiatives
Educational and Professional Development
Workshops are frequently held for instructors, graduate students, and undergraduates. Visit our events page to learn about upcoming workshops.
Teaching Consultations
We offer confidential individual teaching consultations to anyone who teaches at Clark, including full time and part time faculty and graduate teaching assistants. Consultations are typically requested when an instructor has a specific teaching area in which s/he has questions or wishes to improve, but can also be requested for more general teaching feedback. A consultation typically begins with a meeting to determine your interests and needs and to review your course. If you wish, we may proceed to one or more classroom observations, with written feedback provided, and/or continue with additional meetings. Other possibilities include, but are not limited to, videotaping your class and reviewing your student ratings. You make the decisions, and we tailor the consultation to your needs and available time. Most importantly, the consultation is completely confidential. Unless you choose to share information or reports with other people, no one else will ever know that the consultation took place, let alone its content or results.
Peer Learning Assistants (PLAS)
PLAS are undergraduate students selected by the faculty member to facilitate teaching and learning activities that might otherwise be difficult for the faculty member to carry out by him/herself. Experience at other institutions and in several First Year Intensive Seminars (FYIs) and other introductory level courses at Clark has shown that PLAs are most useful in facilitative roles, e.g. giving students feedback on early drafts of writing, leading small group discussions, working with individual students who are having difficulty, facilitating group project work (in or out of class), and/or facilitating online discussions on Moodle. Because they are undergraduates, as is the practice at Clark, PLAs do not grade student work, and they generally do not have the content expertise to serve as substitutes for graduate teaching assistants. PLAs are paid per hour from federal work-study funds or from other institutional funds, or some choose to take academic credit (e.g. independent study or directed reading) for their work. PLAs generally work about 10-15 hr/wk. Please work with your department chair to see if funding is available for PLAs. CETAL offers assistance in redesigning your course to incorporate the inquiry based learning that PLAs can help to facilitate. To discuss how PLAs might help improve your students’ learning, please contact the Dean of the College office.
Conferences Attendance
There are a number of local and national conference and workshops on effective teaching and learning. Please note that if you are interested in attending, CETAL can provide partial funding.
