With more instructors taking their formerly face-to-face courses online, a keen interest in best practices and lessons learned from 2020 has emerged.

To help instructors share ideas about what has and has not worked these past semesters, the Center for Transformative Teaching collaborated with experienced faculty to create the Instructional Support Network in Canvas.

This faculty mentor-supported resource is accessible to all faculty through the Teaching@UNL Canvas shell.

Created just this past December, the network encourages peer discussion of teaching techniques for upcoming semesters. Faculty mentors include the following professors: Cal Garbin, Emira Ibrahimpasic, Suzanne Kemp, Deepak Keshwani, Ann Marie Pollard, Justin Olmanson, Olha Tytarenko and Jing Zhang.

“This space [Instructional Support Network] is still fledgling, so users may find it to be a rather quiet space at first,” Steven Cain, instructional designer at the Center for Transformative Teaching, said. “But if you’re interested in how other people are addressing challenges this spring, I’d encourage you to get that conversation started by sharing some brief remarks or questions about your own approach.”

Another option for faculty support provided by the Center for Transformative Teaching is the Instructional Support Partnerships program, which is intended for instructors who want to have sustained, private conversations with a colleague about teaching at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

“Those interested can provide a bit of information about your teaching arrangement and we’ll do our best to match you up with someone who shares your interests,” Cain said. “Plenty of people already have these types of relationships, but for newer folks it may be difficult to make those connections more organically right now, or perhaps someone would just like to step outside their department and talk with someone new to get a fresh peer perspective.”

Once faculty members are paired up, Center for Transformative Teaching instructional designers will provide teaching articles throughout the semester to be used as conversation starters. Instructional designers will also help identify relevant information about other topics of interest to either faculty member. Interested faculty can apply for the program online.