Center for Excellence in TeachingTeaching Toolkits
Teaching Toolkits are curated collections of resources on a variety of instructional, discipline, and program topics. Each includes a brief introduction and selected materials—the foundation you need to get started quickly and confidently.
We plan to grow this collection over time. As new Toolkits are added, you’ll find even more ideas, strategies, and resources to support teaching across contexts and disciplines.
The First Day
The first day sets the tone for the entire semester. Discover activities to build community, strategies for setting community agreements, and tools to guide your instructional decisions. Inside you’ll find ready-to-use materials like a syllabus template, a faculty decision guide, and a short video on core principles of instruction—all to help you create an engaging and purposeful start to your semester.
New Faculty
New to teaching at USC? The New Faculty Toolkit helps you get oriented quickly with practical, classroom-ready guidance and USC-specific context. It combines faculty tips with resources and decision support for common student scenarios, course design, and learning activities so you can spend less time searching and more time teaching with confidence.
Teaching Assistants
Taking on a teaching assistant role means shaping students’ learning experiences while growing as an educator yourself. The TA Toolkit brings together practical strategies, essential policies, and ready-to-use resources to help you lead discussions, create inclusive and engaging classrooms, provide effective feedback, and navigate your responsibilities with confidence. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to strengthen your practice, you’ll find tools here to support both your teaching and your well-being.
Schedule a consultation or ask us a question!
Institutes
CET institutes engage faculty in advancing their knowledge of scholarly approaches to teaching excellence.
Services
CET promotes a vibrant culture of teaching and learning with consults, Faculty Learning Communities, and the Mentored Teaching Fellows program.