Overview
CCO requires all of its faculty to improve their teaching practice through a process of self-reflection and self-directed professional development. The self-reflection process is accomplished annually using an online form called the Annual Faculty Reflection. This brief form provides a vital link between your teaching, professional development as an educator, teaching performance evaluation and your Program Director’s guidance.
Purpose
For online instructors with busy lives and teaching asynchronous courses remotely, finding time to reflect on your teaching practice can be a challenge. Responding reflectively to the form’s questions provides a starting point for your own professional development and can be used as a basis for any interaction with your Program Director. Your information also serves as a resource for CCO to identify faculty with unique skills for participation in unique employment opportunities or receive special recognition.
Expectations
You are asked to complete the Annual Faculty Reflection each year. There is no single “schedule” since CCO faculty are all on such varied teaching schedules. Instead, you should begin your own individual annual cycle by simply completing an initial Annual Faculty Reflection and then completing it again at the same time each year. Completing the Annual Faculty Self-Reflection helps to fulfill your adjunct teaching contract requirement to “be available for professional development and other program-related activities each semester.”
Performance Evaluation
In addition to your professional development, the Annual Faculty Reflection is an important part of assessing your performance as an educator by documenting all steps that you are taking to improve students’ learning. This supplements all current methods of performance measurement such as students’ course evaluations or e-Learning’s metrics of faculty engagement (class attendance, etc.). Like any self-directed professional development process, the annual reflection puts improvement of your teaching performance in your hands as you define your own goals and methods of improvement that best fit your teaching style and the courses you teach.
Process
Your Annual Faculty Reflection is captured in a software tool called Podio which CCO now uses to manage all CCO faculty’s reflections and goals.
Follow the link to the Annual Faculty Reflection and respond to set of questions at a single sitting. The process should take approximately 20 minutes. Any faculty development activities completed during the year will be entered into the following year’s reflection. Once completed, you can schedule a meeting with your Program Director or wait for your program director to reach out to you.
Additional Information
The process is easy and shouldn’t take more than a few minutes of your time. Below are the questions used for your guided reflection along with a brief overview of each question’s intent.
- Name – Please enter the name used for Champlain teaching, email, teaching contracts, etc., to enable your program director’s ability to view your reflection.
- Program Director – This drop-down menu provides you with the names of all CCO program directors. If you teach courses in more than one program, select both program directors. If you are unsure of who your program director is, check the bottom of this newsletter where they are listed along with the programs for which they are responsible.
- Please list the courses you have taught in the past year. Include course name(s), number(s), and term(s). The easiest way to find these is to open Canvas and review your most recent courses on the left side of the page.
- Reflect on the courses you taught this academic year. What highlights from your teaching successes would you like to build on in the coming year? This is the question that we all need to ask more. Certainly, there were moments of success and interactions with students that could serve as an opportunity on which to build going forward. Said another way, can you point to strengths in your approach to teaching that you want to build on?
- As you consider the teaching you did in CCO during this past year, did you encounter any challenges? This is an opportunity to think broadly about any challenges or critical incidents, however big or small. No course is 100% smooth sailing and looking for those challenging moments may lead to identifying opportunities for change in teaching, the course itself, CCO’s support systems, or all of the above.
- Please describe how you responded to or addressed those challenges. When faced with challenges, you were probably quick to resolve them but reflecting on them invites thinking that is more holistic and comprehensive. It may also lead to challenging deeply-held assumptions about teaching, the course itself, or CCO’s support systems.
- CCO encourages our instructors to be lifelong learners and continue to develop additional expertise in teaching and learning. Did you have development goals last year that you hope to address this year? Please include specific activities and dates. What faculty development activities do you plan to achieve during the next academic year? Please include specific activities and dates. This question really opens the door to your professional development in both your field of expertise AND teaching. Both of these are considered faculty development. As an example, in my own background in teaching Marketing Research, I attended and/or presented at more than one national conference of the American Marketing Association and other professional organizations. My learning from those experiences immediately translated into additions to my course and engagement with students. For additional suggestions, see the section of a previous newsletter titled Professional Development Activities.
Questions?
Feel free to reach out to Don Haggerty, Senior Faculty Lead for Faculty Development by email: haggerty@champlain.edu