CETL Faculty Fellows & Pedagogical Partners

The Center for Engaged Teaching & Learning (CETL) Faculty Fellows Program aims to positively influence learning and teaching at UC Merced and contribute to a growing community focused on intellectual inquiry around student success. UC Merced faculty participating in the Faculty Fellowship Program will:

• Join a community dedicated to enriching intellectual inquiry around learning and teaching.
• Hone their skills as educators.
• Enhance their leadership skills, serving as pedagogical consultants.

Spring 2026 Presentations & Workshops Facilitated by CETL Faculty Fellows

• Coming Early Spring: Instructor Current Practices and Future Needs Survey

FEBRUARY 2026

Friday 2/13, 1:00 PM, Location: KL 316

‘CED Talk Training: As inspired by TED Talk training, this workshop will provide an opportunity for instructors to brush up on their presentation skills, including both vocal and visual delivery of content. Relevant for both teaching and research oral content delivery. Facilitators: Anil Menon & Christa Fraser

Monday 2/23, 3:30 PM, Location: KL 316

A.I. as Ally, not Adversary: A hands-on demonstration of how to train A.I. models for use outside of class (“chat bot teaching assistants”) and inside of class (simulations and web applications) to support student learning. Facilitators: Francesco, Siddaiah, & Ross

March 2026

Monday 3/16, 3:30 PM, Location: KL 316

Leveraging Learning in Large Classes: Strategies for fostering a strong sense of community among students while maintaining accountability in a large classroom setting by integrating case studies and Learning Assistants into course activities.  Facilitators: Ed & Dusty

April 2026

Friday 4/24, noon - 2:00 PM, Location: KL 316

Teaching for Tomorrow: Exploring Essential Skills Your Students Will Need (Friday, April 24th noon-2pm in KL 316). How can we best help students become workplace ready? How might we foster “anticipatory skills” to best help prepare for the future?  Facilitators: Christa & Daniel

Faculty Fellows

Faculty Fellows design projects specialized in a particular theme or outcome aligned with the campus strategic plan, such as:

• AI as Ally, Not Enemy: How can instructors collaborate with artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize student engagement and improve access? This cohort will consider emerging strategies for using AI as a partner to make course content more meaningful for students (e.g., make it feel like a game). We will also explore how AI can serve as a tool to improve student success. Lastly, we consider how AI can be a pedagogical partner, providing you with feedback and drafts on course artifacts as you design your curriculum
• Optimizing Instruction in Large Classes: How do we activate learning without burning ourselves out? This cohort will discuss strategies to personalize the learning experience for students in large classes and optimizing the labor investment of instructors. We will explore evidence-based techniques like using Gradescope to streamline the process of providing feedback, implement cooperative learning to make classes feel smaller, and effectively use the flipped learning model.
• Teaching for Tomorrow: How do we prepare students for the 21^st-Century? For jobs that have not yet been invented, for interpersonal collaboration across differences, for solving ‘wicked problems.’ This cohort will explore what “professionalization” means for the future. We will discuss essential skills that students must develop, how those can be cultivated in our courses, and strategies for encouraging skill transfer beyond our classes/disciplines. Along with that list, we will explore strategies for how to generate non-cognitive habits of mind (and heart) for discovering purpose and meaning-making.

Meet the CETL Faculty Fellows

Interested in Becoming a Faculty Fellow?

• Duration & Compensation
  • The Fellowships are for one academic year.
  • Participants will receive a $5,000 honorarium.
  • Applications occur from Spring through Summer.
• Expectations
  • Attend monthly colloquia with other fellows.
  • Develop expertise in a pedagogical topic or area of emerging need/relevance in your department/discipline/school through independent study, with potential for research in the scholarship of teaching & learning.
  • Disseminate knowledge in consultation with the CETL staff through:
    • Delivering a faculty learning community or workshop series
    • Creation of online materials suitable for asynchronous instructional use.
    • Conduct 1:1 consultation with faculty, as requested/ referred.
    • Actively participate in the Course Design Institute
    • Subcommittee work with the systemwide CTL Consortium if relevant
    • Serve as an ongoing CETL “Pedagogy Partner” affiliation (e.g. open classrooms as exemplars

Applications are closed for the 25-26 Academic Year

Pedagogical Partners are a community of outstanding educators at UC Merced who have offered to open their classrooms to share their teaching. Partners invite you to reach out to them directly if you are interested in observing their class to learn from their pedagogy. Partners will work with you and their students to find a time that works best for all. 

• Curious about how others teach? Reach out to a Pedagogical Partner today! Names, emails, and teaching strategies are listed in the Pedagogical Partner Gallery below. 
• Interested in being a Pedagogical Partner? Fill out the Pedagogical Partner Registration Form and begin sharing! All educators are eligible to be a partner. The more, the merrier! Once the form is complete, refresh this page and you should see your information automatically updated. Thank you for joining the community! 

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to the Center for Engaged Teaching and Learning.

Meet the Pedagogical Partners