Preparing Your Courses

If you are charged with designing courses for your program area or discipline, your first few semesters require a lot of planning upfront, but if you follow some proven techniques for maximizing the return on your investment of time, you will find that maintaining your courses over time will feel more manageable as a result.

Academic Calendars

View the most recent, current, and upcoming academic calendars for Central Piedmont.

Use of Brightspace

Central Piedmont uses Brightspace as our Learning Management System (LMS). Learning how to use Brightspace is often the first thing new faculty need to do to prepare for the upcoming semester. The CTLE offers a range of resources to help you begin the process of learning how to use Brightspace:

Resources for Learning Brightspace

Brightspace Foundations: The official training program for faculty from the CTLE.
Required Course Elements (RCE): A baseline template to import into your data-bs-toggle="tooltip" data-bs-placement="bottom" how to customize each item in the template.
Brightspace 24/7 Support: All Central Piedmont Faculty have access to 24/7 chat support from D2L, the company that makes Brightspace. It can be accessed from the help menu in the top navigation of your courses.

Recommended Workflow

IT Services creates and releases the sections for each course on a predictable cadence each semester. Understanding that cadence and palnning to maintain the content of your courses in sync with that cadence will save you a lot of time and enery.

Quick-Start Links for New Faculty

The CTLE

The Parr Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE) offers wholistic support for Faculty at Central Piedmont

New Faculty Experience (NFE)

The New Faculty Experience program is a required orientation for first-year, full-time faculty. Completing this program will ensure your success.

Adjunct Faculty Orientation

Adjunct Faculty Orientation is is an orientation for our newest part-time faculty members. It's optional, but highly recommended.

For Seasoned Faculty

If you've been a member of the faculty at Central Piedmont for a few years, you are probably familiar with many aspects of teaching at the College, and you are likely here for something specifc. We recognize that your time is at a premium, and we want this handbook to serve as a quick-reference for you when you need it. To aid in that, we have place the most commly-used links for faculty in the footer of each page so that you can get to what you need quickly. The main content of the handbook contains valuable information for you, too. Here you will find more information about current best-practices for teaching and learning, as well as information about how to continue your service to the College by participating in action teams, committees, learning commons, and more.