What We Do

Teaching + Learning Commons’ Engaged Teaching Hub promotes faculty and student success through services that support educators in their teaching roles. Our goal is to inspire and advance teaching excellence through collaborative, evidence-based, student-centered, and equitable teaching practices. Learn about who we are. Learn about our teaching framework. 

Note: During the pandemic, all services are offered remotely. 

Interactive Workshops 

We encourage a scholarly approach to teaching that leverages the knowledge and experience educators bring to their teaching. We achieve this by designing and facilitating workshops and learning experiences that foster community, innovation, equity, anti-racist practices, and the exchange of ideas and resources to improve teaching and learning. Learn about our workshops and view a schedule of upcoming events. 

Teaching Observations, Consultations, and Departmental Support

We offer year-round observations and confidential teaching consultations for UC San Diego educators. Departmental workshops include various teaching topics and are tailored to support course (re)design, peer review of teaching, and program assessment. The Engaged Teaching team also offers consultation to small groups of faculty. Read information on consultation and observation services. 

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

We support educators who engage in inquiry on student learning for the purpose of improving instruction and/or contributing to educational research. We provide consultation for instructors who wish to apply for a Course Development and Instructional Improvement Program grant (CDIIP) and continued consultation for grant recipients. Learn about CDIIP.

Faculty Fellows and Learning Communities

A learning community is an “intentionally developed community that exists to promote and maximize the individual and shared learning of its members. There is ongoing interaction, interplay, and collaboration among the community’s members as they strive for specified common learning goals.” (Lenning et al., 2013, p. 7).

We strive to create intentional learning communities for educators and support their engagement through fellowships. We offer stipends to support education research projects that advance the mission of the Teaching + Learning Commons, examine Engaged Teaching Hub programs, and elevate SoTL projects.

In addition to Engaged Teaching faculty fellows opportunities, we offer a cohort-based Community Engaged Service Leadership and Anti-Racist Pedagogy Learning Community programs. Learn about our Changemaker Faculty Fellows.

Instructional Assistant Faculty Advisors

We support instructional assistant (IA) faculty advisors by providing access to pedagogical resources and community collaborations needed to effectively train and support IAs in their department or program. For examples, we offer bi-annual meetings to connect and collaborate on topic-driven working groups of faculty advisors, individual consultations to discuss and plan departmental IA programs, and opportunities for training in peer observation of teaching protocols for both faculty and senior teaching assistants. Contact engagedteaching@ucsd.edu to ask us about supporting instructional assistant faculty advisors.

Graduate Student Instructor Support 

The Engaged Teaching team prepares instructional assistants (IAs), which includes teaching assistants; instructional apprentices; tutors; and readers for success in their teaching roles. We offer workshops, consultations, and support for IA programs in the home department. We support graduate students preparing to be course instructors by offering guidance in pedagogy and course design, and learning communities during the teaching experience. Learn about programs for graduate students.

The Engaged Teaching team assists non-English speaking teaching assistants and instructors at UC San Diego with developing their language and cultural awareness related to the teaching experience. Learn about our programs for non-English graduate students.

Teaching Resources

The Engaged Teaching team offers teaching resources on how to (re)design, teach, and assess a course. Learn resources helpful to teaching at UC San Diego.