Faculty Teaching Support Site
A six-page faculty teaching support intranet with practical guidance for course preparation, learning technology questions, accessible materials, role-based help, and adaptable teaching examples. Use its linked pages to move from a specific teaching need to a clear next step.
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Built for: Higher education · Community colleges · Online and distance learning
Overview
The Faculty Teaching Support Site is a six-page intranet example for faculty and instructional staff working through common course-delivery questions. Its landing page directs readers to course preparation, learning technology, accessible materials, teaching help, and practice examples. The site uses a horizontal navigation menu and internal page links to keep those routes connected.
Course Preparation turns a learning goal into an ordered sequence: arrange the course space, state the first learner action, and check the sequence from the learner view. Learning Technology helps staff describe a tool issue through the course activity and separate technical behavior from instructional-design needs. Accessible Materials offers practical checks and a fictional before-and-after handout. Teaching Help explains the handoff between instructional-design and learning-technology roles, while Practice Examples shows fictional teaching scenarios with observable learner tasks.
Use this template when you need a navigable starting point for general course-delivery guidance and want readers to find the relevant topic without searching through disconnected documents. Customize the fictional institution, confirm the real support roles and correction route, and add only verified local destinations. The examples are teaching aids, not institutional policy, accessibility certification, or compliance determinations.
Do not use the site as a substitute for institution-specific policy, sensitive-case guidance, formal accessibility review, or a live technical support channel. It contains no LMS or ticketing integration, automated routing, response-time promise, or course-specific content. Assign an owner and review the pages when tools, support responsibilities, or approved guidance change.
Standards & compliance context
- The accessible-material checks support practical review of headings, links, media, and color-independent meaning, but do not establish WCAG 2.1 AA conformance or satisfy a legal review.
- Do not present the fictional course examples as institutional policy, eligibility rules, or compliance determinations; direct local requirements to the responsible institutional owner.
- The learning technology guidance advises excluding sensitive learner information from general support requests; follow your institution's approved privacy and support procedures.
- Use clear headings, descriptive link text, and labels that do not rely on color alone to support accessible navigation, and have the published pages reviewed through your established accessibility process.
General regulatory context for orientation only — verify current requirements with counsel or the relevant agency before relying on this template for compliance.
What's inside this template
Teaching Support
Start with the landing page to identify the teaching topic that matches your immediate course question.
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Teaching Support
Practical course-delivery guidance for faculty and instructional staff. Northbridge Learning Network is a fictional multi-campus institution used for the examples on this site. Start with the task that matches your course question.
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Choose a teaching need
A quick overview of the topics covered across this site. Course preparation Organize the course space. Make the first learner activity and next step clear. Learning technology Describe a tool issue in terms of the course activity and learner experience. Accessible materials Review structure, link wording, media support, and cues that do not rely on color alone. Teaching support Choose a role-based route for instructional-design or tool-access questions. Practice examples Adapt sample prompts and discussions to a course learning goal.
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Go to a focused page
Open the page that matches what you need to do. Prepare a course Work through a practical sequence for a course space and its first learner activity. Work through a tool question Frame the issue and distinguish tool support from instructional-design guidance. Review course materials See practical checks and a before-and-after handout example. Find teaching help Choose a role-based support route for a course-delivery question. Explore practice examples Compare sample teaching approaches and consider how to adapt them.
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Site ownership
Owns this fictional example site Campus and Academic Operations Academic operations
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Questions and corrections
Campus and Academic Operations owns this fictional example. Send an error or outdated-reference question through the established academic operations help route, naming the course-delivery topic and the reference that needs clarification. This site focuses on course delivery, not general employee training or institution-wide readiness. Its examples are teaching aids, not institutional policy, eligibility statements, or compliance determinations. For local requirements or sensitive questions, consult guidance approved by the institutional owner responsible for that subject.
Course Preparation
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Prepare the course around the first learner action
Start with the learning goal, then make the course space show what learners should do first, where to find the materials, and what comes next. A clear opening activity gives learners a way to begin without guessing which item matters.
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A practical preparation sequence
Use this teaching-planning example as a sequence to adapt to the course. Name the learning goal Write what learners should understand or be able to do after the opening activity. Keep the goal focused enough to guide one short task. Arrange the course space Put the opening task and the material it needs in a recognizable order. Use titles that tell learners what each item is for. Make the first activity explicit State the action, the expected contribution, and how learners move to the next part of the course. Check the learner view Review the sequence as a learner would encounter it. Confirm that the starting point, required material, and next action are understandable.
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Worked example: turn a broad goal into a first activity
A fictional course-planning example from Northbridge Learning Network. Broad starting point “Understand how evidence informs a decision” is a useful direction, but it does not tell a learner what to do first. Learner-ready activity Ask learners to read two short, contrasting case summaries, identify one piece of evidence in each, and post a sentence explaining which evidence they would examine next. The task names a concrete action. The prompt connects the activity to the learning goal. The posted sentence makes the learner’s next evidence question visible to the instructor.
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Continue with a related need
Learning technology Use the course activity to frame a tool-support question. Accessible materials Review the structure and learner-facing wording of course materials. Teaching help Choose a role-based route when planning guidance would help.
Learning Technology
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Describe the teaching problem before the tool symptom
A useful support question explains what learners are trying to do, what happens instead, and which course tool is involved. Share only the information needed to describe the issue; do not include sensitive learner information in a general support request. Example: “In the course discussion activity, learners can open the prompt but cannot find where to add a reply. The issue occurs in the discussion area on the course site.” This is more actionable than “The course site is broken.”
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Choose the kind of help that fits
Separate a teaching-design question from a tool-access or technical issue. Instructional-design question Use this route when the tool is available but the activity, sequence, or learner instructions need a design conversation. Describe the learning goal and the learner action. Explain what feels unclear or difficult to follow. Ask for help shaping the activity or course flow. Tool-access or technical issue Use this route when a course tool does not open, a feature behaves unexpectedly, or access appears to be missing. Name the course tool and the activity involved. Describe the expected action and what happens instead. Include relevant troubleshooting details while omitting sensitive learner data.
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Related teaching guidance
Course preparation Clarify the learner task and course sequence. Accessible materials Review learner-facing material examples. Teaching help See the role-based support responsibilities.
Accessible Materials
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Make course materials easier to follow
Use these practical checks while preparing or revising a course item. They are illustrative teaching guidance, not a determination that a material meets institutional requirements or applicable standards. For a complex or sensitive case, seek guidance from the appropriate trained institutional role. Structure: Use descriptive headings in a logical order so the topic and its parts are easy to scan. Readable text: Keep instructions direct, define unfamiliar terms, and use formatting consistently. Link wording: Name the destination or action in the link text rather than relying on “click here.” Media: Check that relevant audio or video has captions or a transcript appropriate to the material and its use. Meaning beyond color: Pair color cues with a label, shape, pattern, or written explanation.
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Before and after: make a handout easier to navigate
A fictional editing example with visible changes a reader can verify. Hard to follow A handout starts with a long block of text, uses bold text as the only section marker, says “click here,” and marks priority items only in red. Sections are difficult to locate while scanning. The link gives no clue about its destination. The color cue may not communicate priority on its own. Clearer version The same handout uses descriptive section headings, labels the link “Open the case comparison,” and marks priority items with both a text label and a visual cue. Readers can scan the document by topic. The link label explains where it leads. The label carries meaning even without color.
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Apply an example to your course
Course preparation Place materials and the first learner action in a clear sequence. Teaching help Find the role-based route for a complex teaching question.
Teaching Help
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Choose help by the question you need answered
For a question about learning goals, activity design, or course flow, start with the instructional-design role. For a tool that will not open, an unexpected feature, or missing access, start with the learning-technology support role. If the issue spans both, describe the teaching task and the tool behavior so the appropriate roles can coordinate. These role descriptions explain a handoff, not a guaranteed response time or a live service channel. If the question concerns a local requirement or sensitive matter, consult the institutional owner responsible for that subject.
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Role-based support responsibilities
Course and activity design Instructional Design Support Teaching support Course-tool access and technical behavior Learning Technology Support
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Continue with practical guidance
Learning technology Prepare a clear description of a course-tool issue. Accessible materials Review material examples before discussing a complex case. Course preparation Use a practical sequence to organize the course and its first activity.
Practice Examples
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Teaching choices in practice
The examples below are fictional Northbridge Learning Network teaching scenarios. They show choices an instructor might adapt to a course goal and learner context; they are not prescribed policy or claims about outcomes.
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Approaches with a clear learner action
Each example pairs a teaching choice with an observable learner task. Prepare asynchronously, then compare in class Before class, learners read two short accounts of the same decision and note one point of evidence from each. In class, pairs compare which evidence they would examine next and explain why. Preparation gives everyone a concrete starting point. The discussion asks learners to compare evidence and explain reasoning. Make the first contribution low-stakes For a course introducing a new concept, learners first write a one-sentence prediction and one question. The instructor uses the responses to choose which misconception to discuss before moving to a longer problem. The prompt gives learners a specific first contribution. The instructor can connect the next explanation to questions actually raised. Replace a broad prompt with a comparison Instead of asking “What do you think about this topic?”, provide two short examples and ask learners to name one difference that changes their interpretation. The examples give learners shared material to discuss. A defined comparison makes the reasoning easier to explain.
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Adapt an example to your course
Course preparation Turn a learning goal into a clear first activity and next step. Accessible materials Check that the prompt and its materials are easier to navigate. Teaching help Find a role-based route for a course-design question.
How to use this template
- Clone the six-page site and replace Northbridge Learning Network with your institution's name and confirmed course-delivery context.
- Assign a site owner and update the role descriptions, correction route, and any destinations using your established site setup process.
- Review each page against your learning tools and support model, removing any example or statement that does not fit local practice.
- Ask faculty or instructional staff to follow the navigation for a real course question and note where a label, handoff, or instruction is unclear.
- Publish the revised pages within your existing intranet navigation and confirm that every internal link opens the intended page.
- Set a review trigger for changes to course tools, teaching support responsibilities, or relevant approved guidance, and revise affected pages.
Best practices
- Keep the landing page focused on the five teaching needs represented by its topic pages rather than adding unrelated employee services.
- Preserve the course-preparation sequence from learning goal to learner-view check so the page produces an actionable planning routine.
- Ask support requesters to state the course activity, expected action, and actual behavior, and remind them not to include sensitive learner information.
- Keep instructional-design and technical-support responsibilities distinct, while explaining how to describe issues that span both.
- Retain observable actions in practice examples, such as comparing two accounts or writing a prediction, instead of replacing them with vague teaching claims.
- Present accessibility checks as review prompts and route complex or formal compliance questions to the appropriate trained institutional role.
- Use descriptive page and link labels consistently across the horizontal navigation and related-page links.
- Name a real owner and correction route before launch, then review content when tools, support roles, or approved requirements change.
What this template typically catches
Issues teams running this template most often surface in practice:
Common use cases
Frequently asked questions
Who is this faculty teaching support site for?
The six pages are written for faculty and instructional staff who prepare or deliver courses. They cover course setup, teaching activities, learning technology questions, accessible materials, support roles, and examples to adapt. The sample institution, Northbridge Learning Network, is fictional, so replace its context before publishing.
Does this template apply to every institution or course?
No. It is a starting point for general course-delivery guidance, not a statement of local policy or eligibility. Review each example against your institution's tools, support model, learner context, and approved requirements. Keep local exceptions with the institutional owner responsible for that subject.
How often should the pages be reviewed?
Set a review cadence that matches changes to your learning tools, support roles, and teaching guidance; the template does not prescribe a fixed interval. Review sooner when a tool changes, a support handoff changes, or faculty report that a linked instruction is unclear. The site identifies Campus and Academic Operations as the fictional example owner, but your published site should name its actual owner and correction route.
Who should maintain the site and answer teaching questions?
The example assigns overall site ownership to Campus and Academic Operations. It distinguishes instructional-design support for learning goals, activity design, and course flow from learning-technology support for access and tool behavior. Map these responsibilities to your real roles and help routes; the template does not provide a live contact channel or response-time commitment.
Does the accessible materials page certify WCAG or legal compliance?
No. Its checks—such as logical headings, descriptive links, media captions or transcripts, and meaning beyond color—are practical review prompts, not an audit or compliance determination. WCAG 2.1 AA can be a relevant accessibility reference, but applicability and required conformance depend on your institution and context. For complex cases or formal requirements, consult the appropriate trained institutional role.
How do I customize the fictional teaching examples?
Replace Northbridge Learning Network references with your institution's context, then adapt the examples to real course goals, materials, tools, and learner tasks. Keep the observable action in each example—such as comparing evidence or writing a one-sentence prediction—while changing the subject matter to fit your course. Check that any local guidance is approved before presenting it as policy.
Does the site connect to a learning management system or support ticket system?
The supplied structure contains static page content and internal links among the six pages. It does not define a live LMS, ticketing integration, automated routing, or transactional support workflow. Before launch, add only confirmed destinations using your site setup process and verify that each route is available to the intended audience.
What is a good rollout approach compared with sharing ad hoc documents?
Start by assigning an owner and confirming the support roles, local requirements, and destinations the pages should reference. Ask a small group of faculty and instructional staff to follow the links for a real course-preparation or tool question, then revise unclear labels and instructions. Unlike disconnected documents, the six-page structure gives related topics a shared navigation path, but it still needs active ownership and content review.
What information should someone include in a learning technology support question?
Describe the course activity, the tool involved, the action learners are trying to take, and what happens instead. For example, say that learners can open a discussion prompt but cannot find where to reply. Include relevant troubleshooting details, but do not put sensitive learner information in a general support request.
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Rolled out to every employee at AutoZone (125,000), PetSmart (50,000+), A.S. Watson and Raley's (20,000) — and at larger retailers we are not permitted to name.
