Academic and Instructional Innovation
Academic and Instructional Innovation works with faculty, staff, and students to support teaching and learning, faculty development, and professional growth.
Academic and Instructional Innovation (A&II) is a team of instructional designers, educational technologists, and system administrators, who can help you apply teaching best practices to your curriculum, make your courses current, relevant, and efficient, and help students get the most from their learning experience. We want to help you create fun, rewarding, and transformative teaching experiences—and most importantly, to help you succeed.
The A&II team is dedicated to giving you support with pedagogical topics and educational technologies that today’s student learning experience demands. Whether you’re teaching for the first time or have years of experience, we can help you!
Services
- Support faculty in designing, delivering, and assessing courses and programs
- Facilitate effective use and leveraging of academic technology
- Support faculty in enhancing teaching, learning, and assessment
- Provide professional development
Resources
- The Academic Technology Support for Faculty section below provides curated links to the most frequently accessed resources resources and tutorials stored on the AII intranet website on SMU Connect. Login is required.
- The Academic Technology Support for Students section below offers a series of curated links to A&II and Student Services resources on the SMU website. Login is not required.
New Faculty Resources
Welcome, new SMU faculty! A&II is looking forward to supporting you on your journey as an educator. We offer a variety of synchronous and asynchronous support covering a wide range of educational tools, teaching pedagogies, best practices, and more. Learn more about resources for new faculty.
If you haven't been provided with a SMU user account, and the Academic Systems Administrator has provided you with a Canvas account, sign in temporarily as a Canvas guest.
Academic Technology Support for Faculty
A&II is SMU's instructional design and support team that helps faculty apply teaching best practices to the curriculum and make courses current, relevant, and efficient. We enable students to get the most from their learning experience by empowering faculty to create engaging, rewarding, and transformative teaching experiences.
We offer support for academic technologies including Canvas, Panopto, Poll Everywhere, Respondus LockDown Browser, Respondus Support, Turnitin, VoiceThread, DesignPlus, and Zoom.
To access A&II resources and tutorials, visit the SMU Connect A&II intranet site. Find SMU Connect through MySMU.
For questions and consultations, contact aii@samuelmerritt.edu.
Academic Technology Support for Students
While primarily serving faculty, A&II does provide support and resources to students. Learn more about Academic Technology Support for Students and Academic Support Resources.
Educational Media
A&II can help you enhance, illustrate, and reinforce your teaching approach by tapping into different styles of learning to increase student engagement. Learn about making the most of media for teaching.
iLearn Teaching with the iPad
iLearn iPad Resources for Faculty
Visit the Reimagine Teaching with an iPad Canvas course for resources, tutorials, tips, and guides on how to maximize use of an iPad for your teaching experience.
About iLearn
iLearn for iPad promotes digital equity among students by placing iPads in the hands of each student. Recognizing that students enter the University with variable digital literacy levels, we provide training and individualized support throughout each person’s educational journey. Learn about the iLearn Initiative. Access the iLearn resources on SMU Connect.
Course Development and Existing Course Revisions
Learn more about in-person, online, hybrid, flipped courses, course development and revisions.
Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
The SMU Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Mini-Grant Research Program supports faculty with $500 to engage in a small research project with the focus on improving SMU student learning. A research project may be related to pedagogy, technology, or course improvement with the intention of improving student learning.
The SMU Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Health Sciences Education
A&II works in conjunction with faculty and other staff to educate on the uses of AI in teaching and health sciences and scholarship on this emerging technology.
