Part I: Welcome to EKU

As a part-time faculty member at EKU, we encourage you to learn as much as you can about the resources and support provided by the institution. At EKU, the daily work of faculty, staff, and administrators is guided by our mission, vision, values and strategic priorities. Take a few moments to review EKU’s 2022 – 2030 strategic plan, Experience Excellence, here. 

Part II: Teaching Your Courses

As many universities do, EKU offers courses in multiple configurations that run at different start dates and durations during the semester. While many courses run full term, other courses may run eight weeks, six weeks, or other lengths of time. During final exam week, instructors are required to engage their students in educational class activities, which is expected for all class types (i.e. in-person, web blended, as well as online). Please refer to the published EKU calendar for more information. 

Planning your Course 

As a new faculty member, you will be expected to teach students who have different learning preferences and challenges. You may want to experiment with a variety of teaching strategies in your classroom to meet the needs of all of your students. The Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning (FCT&L) can help you determine effective teaching strategies for your course. You will also want to review content available at teach.eku.edu, which provides best practices and helpful tools for creating effective teaching and learning environments. 

Students tend to retain more information when they are actively engaged in the learning process. Therefore, it is important to use teaching strategies that are interactive and engaging. We suggest that you use active and collaborative teaching strategies, and not rely exclusively on lectures. 

You may also want to use instructional technology to enhance your teaching. However, it is important to remember that technology is a tool to enhance your teaching, not a resource designed to replace you as the instructor. EKU uses Canvas as its Learning Management System (LMS). Please review the resources available here for more information on Canvas. These resources can help you create and manage the online components of your course. 

You may also want to consider how to use the resources available at EKU to achieve the expected learning objectives. For instance, you may want to set up a consultation with the FCT&L or request a workshop through the Noel Studio for Academic Creativity to support learning in your course. 

Additionally, some of your students may need academic support to complete their class assignments and projects, and may come to the Noel Studio for Academic Creativity. The Noel Studio provides recommended language for your syllabus, to inform students of how to seek writing, communication, and research assistance via the consultation process. Additionally, students can seek academic support from the Student Success Center, or the Center for STEM Excellence. 

It is strongly recommended that you inform your students of these tutoring resources on the first day of class, by including and reviewing the information in your syllabus and in Canvas. Providing early and consistent feedback helps ensure that your students remain informed of their performance in your class, in enough time to make adjustments if needed. To that end, there are built in checkpoints that can serve as an early alert and a chance to make a change, if a student is not doing well. Please note the following milestones:

• The earliest checkpoint is known as First Day Drop, which means that you are expected to drop any student who fails to attend class on the first day (without prior approval). This helps students by keeping them from incurring charges for classes they do not intend to take. Review the full list of deadlines here.
• Fourth-week progress reports provide students with early, learner-oriented feedback in the course. You will submit feedback for each student. In addition, please refer students to academic support, including the Noel Studio for Academic Creativity, Center for STEM Excellence, or Student Success Center.
• Midterm grades are an important opportunity to provide feedback to students and help them find academic support if needed to ensure learning and progress in the second half of the semester. 

For students struggling with issues that may not be strictly academic, the Student Assistance & Intervention Team (SAIT) may be of help. SAIT engages in proactive and collaborative approaches to identifying, assessing, and responding to concerns about students who struggle academically, socially, emotionally, psychologically, or behaviorally. The Team promotes individual student support while prioritizing the safety of the campus community.

If you have a concern about a student that you would like to submit to SAIT, please complete a referral form. A list of student support and referral resources is available here. 

Please review the following as you plan your EKU course:

• Course design approaches and planning resources
• Course planning guide
• Designing welcoming environments to encourage learning
• Student engagement and collaboration
• Teaching resources and quick links

Assessing Learning 

Assessment is an important component of effective teaching. You will find many assessment tools to determine what your students have learned. Plan to assess their knowledge of the subject matter in a variety of ways: examinations, quizzes, written assignments, service-learning projects, oral presentations, and role playing. The FCT&L has created a toolkit with possible assignments of various types that can be adapted to your specific discipline. 

Assignments that are well-constructed can help your students gain skills in research, writing, information literacy, and critical thinking. Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) is used to describe ways in which faculty can be transparent in their teaching practices to encourage and enhance the student learning experience. The TILT approach also encourages student engagement, interest, and buy-in. There are three main components to the TILT approach: 

1. Explain the purpose of the assignment. What does it teach? Why is it relevant? 
2. Describe the task in some detail. Provide examples with annotations, if possible. 
3. Explain the criteria for grading (A rubric can be effective!) Encourage self-assessment and peer assessment. 

Below we have included materials to help you utilize transparent principles in your course, as well as some sample assignment design templates for creating transparent and effective assignments. Access video resources on the TILT approach here or request more information through the Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning. 

Please review the following resources:

• Sustaining learning during the semester
• Developing supportive learning environments
• Strategies for providing meaningful feedback

Part III: Developing a Syllabus

A syllabus is a course outline that describes the instructor’s expectations and provides factual information about the college and the course. A syllabus also carries with it the professional obligation on the part of the faculty member to execute what has been promised. Your syllabus should include sufficient unambiguous information about EKU’s general policies and your specific class policies. 

If this is your first teaching assignment, ask your department chair or department administrative assistant for a sample course outline or syllabus. This outline could save you time in planning and managing your course. Also, many courses will have specific learning outcomes for the course already established, so you will want to work toward those outcomes as you design your class activities and assessments. 

EKU has a set of standard statements that should be a part of every syllabus. These statements can be found here. A syllabus template is available here. 

The Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning is available to support you as you plan your EKU course.

Contact

You are welcome to contact us about any aspect of your course planning or academic resources.

Russell Carpenter, Ph.D., Assistant Provost & Professor of English
Cassie Bradley, Program Manager, Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning
Lisa Blue, Ph.D., Instructional Specialist, Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning

E-mail fctl@eku.edu or submit this form to schedule a one-on-one consultation.