From classroom strategies and course design to Canvas tips and other teaching inspiration, the Adams Center offers the following resources:

Course and Learning Design Assistance

The Adams Center provides individual and group consulting services to assist faculty with course design. Appointments are available for one-on-one meetings, small-group sessions, and customized workshops for departments and colleges.

Teaching Guides

For articles and tutorials on classroom strategies and tips on helping students succeed, visit our teaching guides page.

Syllabus Development

A template and checklist are available to help guide your syllabus development. The Adams Center instructional design team is available to review the syllabus and provide you feedback that may help improve the syllabus or the design of the course in general.

New Course or Program Development and Approval Process

ACU provides resources and guidance for completing the ACU standardized forms for curriculum changes. To access the resources for new course application, new program application, new track or minor application, or the approval chart for curriculum changes, go to MyACU, find “Quick Links“, and click on “Faculty Policies and Procedures.” You will find “Curriculum Change Documents” toward the end of the page. For support or advice on this process contact Amy Boone or Scott Hamm.

Canvas

Whether you are new to Canvas, or on your way to being an expert user, you will find how-to videos and detailed descriptions of features to improve the experience for both you and your students.

Online Teaching

From snow days to a pandemic, it sometimes becomes necessary to move your course online. Further, curriculum and program changes may require a course to move online permanently. The AC has prepared guidance in strategies and access to resources to assist you in the transition.

Community-Based Learning/Service Learning

As a teaching strategy, service learning improves student engagement and retention and deepens learning. Further, it is a high-impact practice that can be more equitably accessible to all students when compared to other HIPs. Successfully partnering with community organizations improves with experience. The AC provides information on best practices and tools, such as templates for a Memorandum of Collaboration with partners and a Learn/Serve agreement for students.

Faith and Learning Support

For faculty members at ACU, teaching and scholarship are integrated with the Christian faith. This integration not only influences the content of what we teach and what we study but, ideally, it shapes the way that we teach and conduct our research. No matter their discipline, faculty members are encouraged to explore and articulate how their work can be an expression of the pattern of Christ for the sake of their students and the world. 

The Adams Center supports the integration of faith and learning in several ways. In faculty members’ first year at ACU, the monthly New Faculty Orientation meetings invite them to consider various aspects of what it means to be a Christian teacher at a Christian university. We also offer regular “Mission” lunch sessions and semester-long book groups that explore the intersection of faith and higher education. Through the Growing Scholar and Ending Well programs, we provide communities for vocational reflection at strategic points in faculty members’ careers. Additionally, individual conversation and consultation are available by emailing the Director of Faculty Development here.

Master Teacher Training Program

The Master Teacher Program seeks to empower faculty to develop and implement best practices and data-driven techniques into their courses, resulting in long-term significant learning. Open to any full-time faculty member, participants meet monthly, engaging in face-to-face and online discussions, observations, and reflection.

Teaching Squares

The Adams Center will offer an opportunity for any interested faculty to learn from one another through our Teaching Squares initiative. We are blessed with many gifted teachers at ACU, and this program creates a formal structure for soliciting the wisdom and experience of your peers in order to improve your own teaching. Check our newsletter at the beginning of each semester for opportunities to sign-up.

Mid-Semester Feedback

Mid-semester evaluations give faculty the opportunity to get feedback on what is working in a course as well as seek recommendations for improving learning and teaching. One way to “check the pulse” of your class is through focus groups. An Adams Center staff member would be happy to come to your class for 10-15 minutes, lead a discussion about your students’ learning and report back to you. Email to set up a time.

Lunch Sessions

The Adams Center hosts over one hundred educational lunch sessions each year. Sessions invite faculty to discuss teaching and learning, share scholarship, consider mission, and build collegiality. In addition, each semester we have several reading groups to discuss a common read. Our Monday morning email describes each week’s sessions.

Student Fellows

A panel of six students regularly meets with the AC staff to discuss the student point of view on teaching excellence. Several sessions featuring the panel, and open to all faculty, are held in the Center each year.

Further Resources

Additional resources are available through other campus offices, subscriptions, and memberships.