Consulting services

Instructional consultants are available at no cost to discuss issues related to teaching and learning with anyone who teaches Penn State students.

We work with instructors on their courses, as well as with administrators and staff whose responsibilities impact teaching and learning. Below are brief lists of common consultation topics and issues. See our Tools and Tips for Teaching and Learning page for other consultation topics. Please contact us at site@psu.edu or 814-863-2599 to schedule a consultation on one of these topics, or any other teaching and learning issue you would like to discuss.

Individual consultations

• Course design and planning

  Our consultants can help you plan a course by reviewing your syllabus and/or helping you to develop sound learning objectives and appropriate activities and assignments.

• Teaching and assessment strategies

  Schreyer Institute staff can discuss classroom or online strategies that will keep students motivated and engaged, how to construct appropriate tests (including multiple choice item-writing) and strategies for classroom management.

• Course evaluation

  Our instructional consultants can assist you in obtaining student feedback through classroom assessment techniques, midsemester feedback and classroom observations. We can also help you to interpret SRTEs.

• Evaluation for educational grants

  Institute consultants will assist you with applications for external grants with a curricular or pedagogical focus from organizations such as NIH, NIMH, NSF and FIPSE. In addition, we can help design the evaluation sections for external grants.

Department/program/campus consultations

• Schreyer Institute consultants also meet with departmental/program/campus representatives to design custom programs for faculty or campuses (including new faculty and graduate students), assist with program assessment, or discuss other topics with broad applicability such as diversity or undergraduate research.