Teaching

Creating a new course or changing a course

Instructional Support

  • UC Davis Center for Educational Effectiveness (CEE) provides virtual and in person workshops and consultations to support your teaching and to learn about implementing equitable assessment practices. CEE also hosts a variety of learning communities and provides TA training.
  • Just in Time Teaching Resources are curated by the Center for Educational Effectiveness to provide evidence-based strategies and tools to inform teaching practices.

Creating inclusive classrooms

Office of the University Registrar's Faculty Guide

  • The Office of the University Registrar’s Faculty Guide contains policies and procedures concerning faculty members and their relationship with student registration, classroom assignment, final exams, and other areas of responsibility of the Office of the University Registrar.

FERPA and Student Privacy

The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protects the privacy of student records. As an instructor you should treat all student information, including grades, accommodations, and personal identifying data as private. All instructors should review FERPA policies and guidelines. All instructors are also encouraged to complete the UC Davis online FERPA training program offered through the campus Learning Management System, linked below.

If you are recording and/or distributing audio or video recordings of course content, both student and presenter/instructor privacy should be considered. In some cases, approval from students/course participants may be needed. Recordings of class lectures made for exclusive use of students with approved accommodation is allowed within policy. Meetings with students should not be recorded without explicit consent of participants. Instructors should review campus and system-wide privacy policies and guidelines to ensure compliance.

Course schedule and rosters

  • Course planning is done 12-18 months in advance and course scheduling is done 9 months in advance of the quarter. The academic advisor will send a call for course scheduling preferences each quarter. Changes requested after that can only be done if absolutely necessary, and are subject to Dean's Office approval.
  • Course schedule 2025-2026 (viewable by instructors and graduate students only)
    • Graduate courses are often left unscheduled, and worked out with the class roster at the start of the quarter. If you would prefer to schedule your course, please do so with the department academic advisor 9 months in advance of the quarter
    • Official class schedule: classes.ucdavis.edu. Includes the course's add/drop dates, general education credit, and prerequisites  
    • Courses you are teaching, including locations: my.ucdavis.edu
    • Course management system: Canvas
    • Photo Rosters 

Course advertisements

  • Consider advertising your course by contacting David Arias. He can help you send a flyer around to advisors, post an advertisement on social media, or post an electronic flyer on the TVs around campus (silo, MU, residence halls, etc)

Prerequisites

  • Students must meet all course prerequisites in order to keep their spot in a class. To request taking a class without having met the prerequisites or if their prerequisites aren’t reflected in their academic record (i.e. new transfer students), students will fill out a petition on Schedule Builder. It’s the responsibility of the instructor each quarter to review and approve or deny these petitions, which can be found at photorosters.ucdavis.edu. This should be done at the start of Pass 2 each quarter, and no later than the first day of the quarter. Find out more information on the OUR Prerequisites page.

Permission to Add Numbers (PTAs)

  • If a student needs to add a course that is full or has a time conflict, they will need a PTA. Please email the EPS Academic Advisor your permission along with their name and email address.
    • Back-up for PTAs: CAO Jamie Brannan
  • Permission to Drop numbers are only given by the Dean’s Office advisors in the student’s declared college.

Syllabus suggestions

Office hours

Textbooks 

  • The Academic Advisor will send a call to instructors of record before the start of the quarter for textbook orders for your class.
  • Students have a program called Equitable Access where they pay a flat price for all their electronic textbooks for the quarter. You must submit your textbook as "required" for it to be included in EA.
  • All instructors and TAs have access to an electronic version of the textbook on Canvas. You may also request paper desk copies and check these out from the Academic Advisor at the start of the quarter. Please return these desk copies when you are done using them.
  • Information on Library Course Reserves for Instructors

Course Materials and Services Fees (CMSF)

Some courses may have Course Materials and Services Fees (CMSF) assessed to students to cover a portion of the costs of supplies, consumables, and some technical staff support. Students may request a waiver of the CMSF. If your course assesses Course Materials and Service Fees, you should indicate this in the course syllabus and provide information about how students can request a CMSF waiver. To determine if your course has a CMSF, discuss with your department chair or CAO. Per policy, departments and course instructors must provide information to students about CMSF and processes for obtaining waivers. The UC Davis Class Search Tool and Schedule Builder (links below) also provide students with information on CMSF if they are assessed for a specific class.

Students with Disabilities

  • Students with documented disabilities should visit the Student Disability Center (SDC) to arrange for accommodations. The SDC will prepare a letter to instructors with that student's approved accomodations for each class. Instructors are required to provide the accommodations requested by the SDC.
  • The SDC offers physical space and scheduling support for exams for students with accommodations through their Accommodated Exam Services. You may also schedule an empty classroom through the front desk or by emailing eps-business@ucdavis.edu. 

TAs/Readers

Class Field Trips

  • If you're going on a field trip as part of your class, arrange things like vans or a charter bus with the business office.
  • Have students fill out the field trip waiver and the emergency contact information form. One copy goes to the business office and one copy goes with the instructor of record on the trip.
    • Classes with fieldwork as an official learning activity in the course description don't need to do field trip waivers, but should still do emergency contact forms.
  • Please also add your field trip to the Google Calendar for field trips. Email eps-business@ucdavis.edu if you need access to that google calendar.

Field Safety

Student assignment submission

  • If you will want any assignments turned in in hard copy, please don’t instruct students to submit their work to a mailbox in the copy room, as this isn’t secure. You can request a homework drop-off box near the first floor elevators by emailing eps-business@ucdavis.edu.

Contact hours

  • Instructors of Record will receive an email call from the Academic Advisor partway through the quarter asking for your contact hours with students. This includes time in lecture or mentoring students doing independent study, research, or internships. This does not include office hours. It’s very important that you respond to this call so that the department can accurately report our student credit hours for budgeting needs.

Student Academic Conduct

Instructor Absences

If you must miss a class, discuss with your department chair how coverage should be managed. Policies and practices for having Teaching Assistants (TAs) cover class lectures should be clarified with your department, and in most cases, TAs should not be asked to do this if not included in their contract for the course. Note that the UC Davis Academic Senate allows for limited online instruction in the case of instructor travel/absences, guest lectures, etc. Senate policies should be consulted for in-person classes that have some on-line activity, whether planned or on an emergency basis.

Grading

Course evaluations

  • Online course evaluations will be set up each quarter for all classes taught in Geology. You will receive an email when yours is set up with a link at which you can preview your evaluation templates. Evaluation questions are also available publicly.
  • Students will be automatically reminded when they have open evaluations to complete, but it’s recommended you also remind students or allow time in class to complete course evaluations.
    • Information to pass along to students: At the end of the quarter there will be an opportunity to evaluate this course. Course evaluations will take around 10 minutes. Results are anonymous and are not shared with the instructor or TAs until after final grades are submitted. These evaluations are used to assess the classroom community, faculty, TAs, and overall class. They are reviewed regularly as part of faculty performance reviews, promotions, and raises. Faculty and TAs will read these evaluations each quarter to incorporate your feedback the next time this course is taught. Faculty would like to know what teaching strategies are successful. Your input is extremely valuable to the improvement of courses and the department.
  • Once final grades are submitted, you will be able to view and download your course evaluation results. They disappear from this website after a few quarters so you should download your results for your records. 

Records retention

  • Final exams must be kept until the end of the next regular term (Fall ,Winter, or Spring; Davis Division Regulations 538 (I)). Work for a student taking an Incomplete grade should be kept for a year. Keep records of grades for students who you report to the Office of Student Conduct and Integrity for academic misconduct, as you will be responsible for submitting the new grade when that referral is resolved. Everything else is up to your discretion as to how long to keep it.
  • Feel free to bring student work for confidential shredding to the front office anytime.

Students of concern and student resources 

  • The Office of Student Support is one of the main offices for reporting and communicating with students of concern. You can submit a CARE report there if you're unsure how a student might need help
  • Aggie Mental Health for a one-stop online shop for mental health support
  • All student resources are listed at MyUCDavis.
  • A good first place to send a student is their major or college advisor
  • You may also talk to the Academic Advisor for more resources.
  • Consider also adding this resource page to your Canvas page.