Course Reflections
To help guide professional development at National Louis University, a coalition of faculty from across the University, including the Faculty Development Committee, has created the Teaching Excellence - Faculty Development Framework. This framework has three domains: Subject Matter Guide, Designer and Teacher, and Community Builder.
As faculty, we constantly work in all three domains, some of which come more naturally to us. To help reinforce these domains, some course reflections are offered here. These are a great way to document what we're doing every term and can be submitted as a reflective teaching jounal under the Teaching Excellence portion of your Faculty Performance Evaluation or Promotion and Tenure dossier.
Domain #1: Subject Matter Guide
Faculty develop the ability to help students, who are mostly novices, acquire the knowledge, skills, and disposition to acclimate to the discipline’s professional practice.
- Faculty guide students into their deep, evolving, and foundational knowledge in their content area. [3.2]
- Faculty model to students the way a practitioner solves problems and applies the discipline’s skills and knowledge in a professional setting.
- Faculty apply discipline-specific learning research to their teaching practice.
Here are a few questions to consider when reflecting on strategic or creative uses of subject matter each term
What are some creative ways that I brought my work outside of NLU to the classroom this term?
A few field-specific publications or subject matter experts (SMEs) that I introduced my students to this term are...
- ...And how will these publications and SMEs help prepare my students to work in the field?
What personal experiences from the field did I share with students (or ask them to share) to bring the subject matter to life?
Domain #2: Designer and Teacher
Designer and Teacher - Faculty develop the skills to design and facilitate learning experiences and environments to engage learners and personalize the learning to help learners achieve their educational outcomes.
- Faculty design learning experiences to motivate students to be active participants in their learning.
- Faculty experiment with and adopt evidence-based instructional practices to improve student outcomes.
- Faculty investigate the impact of their teaching, reflect, and make changes to improve student outcomes.
- Faculty organize and manage time, materials, technology, and physical and virtual space to facilitate learner engagement and outcome achievement.
- Faculty experiment with and employ technology to increase learner achievement and engagement.
Using the prompts below, reflect on your experience from a Faculty Forum, or other professional development, you have attended this term. Writing reflections like these are a great way to solidify our use of practices learned in PD sessions as teaching habits.
Name of PD Session:
Key Takeaways:
Strategy Implemented:
Which Key Takeaways would I implement again?
What would I do differently the next time I teach this course?
Domain #3: Community Builder
Community Builder: Faculty develop the skills to create a safe, inclusive, and equitable learning community where each individual student can flourish.
- Faculty foster an equitable and inclusive learning community.
- Faculty ensure that students' identities are represented, recognized, and valued.
- Faculty leverage the learning opportunities of social, collaborative, and peer interactions when designing and facilitating learning experiences.
Here are three questions to consider when reflecting on your use of DEI practices each term
What efforts did I make this term to incorporate diverse perspectives into my course?
What strategies did I implement this term to create a more inclusive environment for my students?
What would I do differently the next time I teach this course?
Reflection qustions to consider at the end of the term
What new steps did I take to make the curriculum more relevant to my students?
Which current events did I incorporate into class this term, and how did it go?
What would I do differently the next time I teach this course?
