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CEILS Scientific Teaching Institute: Foundations of Equitable Course Design & Inclusive Teaching

This year CEILS has the funds to compensate UCLA instructors (senate and non-senate faculty including adjunct, lecturers, and academic administrators) for your time in the amount of $1,000 in unrestricted research funds upon completion the institute and the daily deliverables.

Participants will receive a certificate of completion. Record your participation in your dossier as evidence of your efforts to improve teaching and as an activity that helps promote equal opportunity and diversity in education. Such efforts in both categories, on behalf of all faculty, are now a recognized component of the promotion and tenure process at UCLA (see APM 210-1, and Appendix 41).

“No one has ever asked me what I want students to remember 5 years from now. That was SUCH a helpful place to start to really highlight the aspects of content/process/learning that are most important to me. ”

“I already mostly planned using backward design (though I didn’t know that phrase before this week!). But this institute taught me to be deliberate and intentional about doing that.”

“My first experience designing my portion of a course was a bit of a struggle. However, after attending the Summer Institute, I feel that I have a better sense of direction, and have more resources when it’s time to design my own course! I’m actually excited to create my own syllabus!”

Our CEILS Scientific Teaching Institute: Foundations of Equitable Course Design & Inclusive Teaching Event has passed. Please check again during the academic year for 2025 programming.

Description: The CEILS Scientific Teaching Institute is designed to introduce you to evidence-based strategies for inclusive teaching and course design. The experience is facilitated by CEILS team members. Working in teams, you will revise and receive supportive feedback on your daily assignments. This daily planning culminates with a completed syllabus, assessment plan, sample lesson plan, and embedded feedback strategy. Tips, strategies, and resources for equity, accessibility, and remote/online design will be integrated into the workshops and course site resources.

Who should participate? Any instructor in the Life & Physical Sciences is welcome to participate. This will be particularly helpful for instructors who are new to UCLA, teaching a new course or revising an existing course, and anyone else interested in learning about best practices and applying this information to your teaching. Teams of co-instructors teaching the same course or courses in a series are encouraged to attend together and can work together with the same facilitator.

Format: The institute will take place in person over the course of one week (excluding the weekend). Each day, there will be a 2-hour workshop from 10am -12 noon, followed by group work time in the afternoon for you to work on assignments (e.g. revising your syllabus or assessments). Resources will be available on the course site to support you in completing the assignments, and facilitators will be available to meet with you daily. Daily assignments are due by 4pm so that your facilitator can review and give you feedback by the next workshop session. See the detailed schedule below for more information.

Learning Outcomes:

  • Apply the “Backward Design” framework and principles to create a course with clear learning goals, aligned assessments, and engaging activities.

  • Explore equitable assessment that foster deeper learning for students in order to develop an assessment plan for your course.

  • Experience active learning techniques and create a sample lesson plan for one or more of your course activities.

  • Utilize strategies to make your course syllabus more inclusive and welcoming to your students.

  • Create a plan that will allow you to capture helpful and supportive feedback on your course from students and/or peers as you teach.

Top 5 Reasons to Apply

  1. Be in community.  Don’t sit alone at your desk drafting your syllabus, come and be in community. We will have ample opportunities to give feedback and exchange ideas….and have fun!
  2. Move past the AI overwhelm.This can be an opportunity for you to thoughtfully integrate artificial intelligence competencies, tools, and guidelines into your course design.
  3. Get Fall course prep done. Be proactive and get your fall course preparation started in August, rather than procrastinating until the week before classes! Finalize your syllabus, assignments and activities with strong support and feedback from peers.
  4. Up-skill your teaching. Review some best practices for course design and teaching and learn some new ideas. Daily workshops provide an overview on evidence-based teaching practices that you can incorporate into your course design including current topics such as Universal Design for Learning, AI, accessibility in instruction, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.
  5. You get to be the student. Our daily activities and resources will utilize BruinLearn, and our facilitators can help you get more comfortable with different tools and features you might want to incorporate into your own course site as you act as a “student” submitting daily assignments which build towards your full course design.

For a detailed schedule for 2024, please download and review our CEILS SI 2024 Schedule and Info Sheet

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