Joining UW-Madison’s Teaching & Learning Community

UW-Madison Libraries have an incredible wealth of resources, services, spaces, and extensive staff expertise – all for you! UW-Madison Libraries together make up Wisconsin’s world class public research university library system. We offer convenient access to print materials, e-books, databases, electronic journals, and article/book delivery from libraries around the world. Our librarian experts can help you with all aspects of your research lifecycle and can support your teaching with information literacy instruction or curricular content needs.

The Libraries staff hold a depth of expertise via subject specialists who are available for personalized attention and  are familiar with your discipline.  For more immediate assistance, our staff are ready to respond to your reference questions virtually or in-person. Please visit this quick overview to learn about all the ways the libraries can help you with your research, teaching, and personal pursuits.

Go Big Read is the Chancellor’s popular UW-Madison common reading program. The program engages members of the campus community and beyond in a shared, academically focused reading experience. Students, faculty, staff, and community members are invited to participate by reading the book and taking part in classroom discussions and campus events.  The 2022-2023 book is How the Word Is Passed by Clint Smith.  Visit the program website for more information on obtaining copies of the book, resources, etc. The Chancellor’s program is project managed by the UW-Madison Libraries.

Learn@UW is UW-Madison’s suite of supported learning technologies.

Upcoming Trainings

UW-Madison’s Writing Across the Curriculum program is eager to help you think about creative and effective ways to incorporate writing and speaking assignments into your courses at all levels and in all disciplines. The hundreds of pages of materials on this site offer a good place to start. If you teach at UW-Madison, we would be happy to consult with you about ways to customize these materials and the pedagogical strategies they suggest.

Writing Center staff help undergraduate and graduate writers at any stage of the writing process—from choosing a topic to drafting and revising—for any writing project. We talk with students about writing goals, review writing, and have a conversation about what next steps writers might take. UW-Madison has one of the most comprehensive writing centers in the country, providing instruction to some 7,000 undergraduate and graduate students each year.

Learn more about The Writing Center

Additional resources for Faculty, Staff & Teaching Assistants:

• Helping Your Students to Use the Writing Center Effectively
• Highlights of What We Do
• Teaching Resources
• Writing Center Outreach
• Writing Fellows Program – Information for Faculty

You don’t have to be a tech whiz to design and implement successful and effective digital assignments! The DesignLab helps instructors to to incorporate media assignments in courses and develop assignments that target outcomes in digital literacies and integrative learning.

Beyond the instructional services, DesignLab also is a free service for students, faculty, and staff to get personalized design feedback and recommendations on digital projects. We offer one-on-one or small group appointments to provide help on projects such as research posters, presentations, videos, infographics, data visualizations, podcasts, and more.

Learn more and Make an Appointment

The mission of the Teaching Academy is to promote, recognize and support excellence in teaching and learning among faculty, staff and students across campus. The Teaching Academy offers a number of ways for instructors to engage – from becoming a member to events such as the Fall and Winter Retreats.

Clinical Learning and Teaching Community

Learn more

The Morgridge Center for Public Service is dedicated to connecting community and campus through community engagement to build a thriving democratic society. We are committed to supporting the Wisconsin Idea by building equitable relationships with community partners to share knowledge, solve real-world problems, and work towards social justice.

We believe faculty and staff play a crucial role by forming authentic, mutually beneficial academic partnerships, and UW-Madison faculty, staff and students have much to gain and learn from those partnerships. We know from experience that doing this takes time and effort that pays off in proven student learning outcomes, positive class evaluations, and authentic data for research and publication that serves both academic and community interests while also feeding the soul. The Morgridge Center has numerous programs and services to support your participation in the important and meaningful work of community-engaged scholarship: defined as teaching, research, and scholarly activities that are performed in equitable, mutually beneficial collaboration with communities and community members to fulfill campus and community objectives.

Teach a community-based learning course and integrate engagement into your curriculum. CBL course approval gives you access to our CBL interns, our Transportation Options, and our consultation services.

Or engage in community-based research. We can consult with you on finding community partners, funding avenues and broader impacts.

Discover rolling funding, resources and events to bridge the campus classroom and laboratory into the community. Subscribe to the Engaged Scholars listserv to stay up to date on events and offerings.

The Morgridge Fellows faculty development learning community — designed to further support community-engaged scholarship at UW by strengthening instructor practice, knowledge base, and partnership-building expertise — launched in 2018 and welcomes a fourth cohort in September. Please watch for a call to apply in the spring.

A Teaching Award for Excellence in Community-Based Learning was established in 2018.

All four Divisional Committees recently updated tenure guidelines to recognize Scholarly Activity that Enhances the Wisconsin Idea (linked here).

UW-Madison’s campus wide Civic Action Plan includes a new push to help instructors prepare students for working in communities. Our “Community Engagement Preparation” resources, including custom workshops as well as online modules, develop intellectual and cultural humility needed to sustain equitable partnerships.

During the pandemic, Stanford’s “Pathways” model on our COVID-19 Resource page is one way to think about expanding on the typical volunteer-type model, and other resources will help with finding virtual engagement opportunities.

The UniverCity Alliance is a network of leaders from across campus hosted at the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, UW’s think-and-do center on “high-road” (see here for definition) development, which treats better shared prosperity, environmental sustainability, and competent democratic government as necessary complements, not tragic tradeoffs, in our lives together. UCA serves as a front door for local governments interested in making these better places together. Nearly all schools and colleges are involved. We are always looking for new Advisory Board members.

Faculty can join the “Urban Futures Community of Practice” which is a network of scholars interested in applying their research and service toward cities and local governments. The community meets semesterly and hosts a lecture series. We have developed networks with other Big 10 universities interested in scholarship to improve urban areas through the Big 10 Academic Alliance “Community Engagement Network.” Faculty can also find networking opportunities through the Educational Partnerships for Innovations in Communities Network.

Faculty can also apply their teaching to a set of community-defined projects through the UniverCity Year program. We work with faculty to find projects that match their interests so their students can get practice-oriented experiences that meet community needs. Interested faculty should get in touch through this form. We also help connect faculty and students with research projects that have been developed by the community.

The Delta Program engages graduate students and postdocs in professional development in teaching, mentoring, outreach and advising.

Learn more

WISCIENCE the Wisconsin Institute for Science Education and Community Engagement, collaborates across and beyond campus to empower educators, advance science education and outreach, and broaden engagement in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) for all. WISCIENCE promotes cross-college collaboration among university educators around issues in science education, offers a Teaching Fellows and Service Fellows training program for graduate students and postdoctoral scholars, and provides and coordinates mentor/mentee training for graduate students, postdocs, and faculty. WISCIENCE initiates and supports outreach efforts to improve K–12 science education, prepare future science undergraduates, and encourage general public engagement with the natural sciences.