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Resources for the Classroom

These resources will help you in the classroom.
  • Affordable Instructional Resources (AIR): Affordable Instructional Resources is a University-wide initiative to support faculty in making course materials more affordable and accessible. AIR experts in course affordability are available to meet for individual consultations and assistance. Resources include:
    • Open Educational Resources (OER) Faculty Grants: OER teaching materials are free, distributed online, and allow anyone to copy, use, adapt, and remix the materials for free.
    • Books for ’Cats: First-year eligible students (as determined by Financial Aid) borrow course materials (textbooks, access codes, clickers, chemistry lab gear) for select introductory STEM, humanities, social science and language classes.
  • Canvas: Canvas is a cloud-hosted learning management system that allows instructors and students to deliver course materials, submit assignments, view grades and create learning activities.
  • Digital Learning at Northwestern: Celebrating educational innovation across Northwestern. Connect with other instructors and explore new ideas to enhance teaching and learning and access technology for instructors in the resource hub.
  • Faculty and Advisers Action Guide: School Advising Leadership (SAL) and Student Assistance and Support Services (SASS) have created the Faculty and Adviser Action Guide to identify levels of concerning behavior and the appropriate contacts for a given type of undergraduate student academic or behavioral concern. The guide provides contacts for emergency, urgent, and both academic and non-academic concerns.
  • Northwestern Libraries: Northwestern Libraries provides course reserves at the library and in your Canvas site (print, digital, and streaming media); Assists with discovery and selection of affordable, open, and e-textbook options. Partner with a librarian to create activities or learning objects, customized for your courses, that will improve your students’ research skills; use library classrooms for research instruction and utilize video and audio recording studios to record your presentation, lecture, or instructional video. Services include:
    • Course Reserve: Library service to make course materials (print, digital and streaming media) available at the library circulation desk or via your Canvas site.
    • Syllabi Review: Available to determine whether journals and e-books are available via library databases.
  • One Book One Northwestern: Community-wide reading program aimed at engaging the campus in a common conversation centered on a carefully chosen, thought-provoking book.
  • Open Educational Resources (OER): Open Educational Resources offers free teaching materials, including textbooks, which are intended to be widely distributed and modified to fit the particular needs of instructors. OER experts are available to assist faculty in finding or developing OER for their courses. 
  • Ordering Textbooks: Northwestern has partnered with Faculty Enlight, an online content search, discovery and adoption website that allows faculty to research and adopt textbooks in one convenient place. Faculty teaching courses on both campuses may register and order textbooks through this site.
  • Searle Center for Advancing Learning & Teaching: The Searle Center provides a variety of programs, workshops, and services for teaching excellence. Faculty should consult the Northwestern Principles of Inclusive Teaching, supported by accessible strategies and case studies that instructors can use to create and sustain inclusive learning environments.
  • Syllabus Statements: All instructors are asked to include certain statements on their syllabi.
  • Teaching & Learning Information Technology: Teaching & Learning Information Technology fosters innovative learning experiences through learning management systems, in-class and online course development, learning analytics, course evaluation, lecture capture, classroom technology consultations and support, and other tools for faculty. Services include training for the University’s learning management system, Canvas and an annual TEACHx showcase. 
  • The Block Museum of Art: The Block is a dynamic, imaginative, and innovative teaching and learning resource for Northwestern and its surrounding communities. The Block offers group tours and class trips. Specifically, the Block Museum presents art across time, cultures, and media; Convenes interdisciplinary discussions in which art is a springboard for exploring issues and ideas; Collects art that supports the Northwestern University curriculum.