AY 300 - Fall 2011: Last Day Lesson Plan

Preface

Today's class will involve professor visits, teaching portfolios, pedagogy research, and some closing notes.

Section recap

(20 minutes)

The person on call for this week will share their section experience. Some questions include:

  • What did you do?
  • How did you implement your activities?
  • What worked?
  • What didn't work?
  • What would you do differently?
  • How did you assess learning?
  • Did you receive any unexpected questions/reactions/etc.?
  • Did anything unexpected happen?
  • What were you thinking about while you were running section? Any moments of panic?

Professor Visits

(⇐90 minutes)

Due to a Academic Senate meeting, these visits will be sprinkled throughout the class. We'll hear from Filippenko, Davis, Quataert, and Stahler on teaching, pedagogy, and philosophy.

Teaching Portfolios & Statements of Teaching Philosophy

(10 minutes)

Slater and Adams has a good chapter on the Teaching Portfolio.

  • Good emphasis on not slipping into generalities and on trying to connect everything to a set of specific goals.
  • The rubric itself is pretty logical given what we've talked about this semester.
  • The 5 main points to cover/things to do in a Teaching Philosophy are:
    1. Goals for student learning
    2. Enactment of goals/teaching methods
    3. Assessment of goals (measuring student learning)
    4. Creating an inclusive classroom and acknowledge differences in students' learning abilities and styles
    5. Good structure, rhetoric, language; well-written
  • General guidelines:
    1. Brief (1-2 pages)
    2. Narrative, first person approach
    3. Portray yourself as an individual: don't be vague, broad, or too general
    4. Give specific examples of your teaching in practice
    5. Showcase your strengths and accomplishments
    6. Convey reflectiveness
    7. Communicate that teaching is valued
  • Michigan's Center for Research on Learning and Teaching has a great site on this stuff here

You might try this to get you started: In at least one paragraph, but not more than one page, answer the following questions:

  1. I bring to teaching a belief that …..
  2. In the classroom I see myself as …..
  3. I believe students are …..
  4. I seek to foster in students …..
  5. I think the role of discussion section is …..