Early Career Teaching Success:
Being Scholarly About Your
Teaching
A workshop at the University of Saskatchewan
Thursday 14 November 2012
Dr Kathryn Sutherland
Associate Dean, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
Kathryn.Sutherland@vuw.ac.nz
What matters most in student learning?
A few well-supported generalisations from research on teaching and learning in higher education
First impressions matter…and tend to last
Expectations matter…and can be influenced
Motivation matters…and can be enhanced
Prior knowledge and beliefs matter…and can derail or enhance learning
Connections matter…both intellectual and emotional
Collaboration matters…and involves skills that can be taught and learned
Organisation matters…more to novices than to experts, who provide their own
Feedback matters…if we are motivated, know how, and have opportunities to use it.
Active engagement matters…what learners do matters more than what teachers do.
Successful early career faculty and teaching
Passionate
• Enthusiasm is contagious
Successful early career faculty and teaching
Passionate
• Enthusiasm is contagious
Caring
• About their subject, about their students’ progress AND well-being, and about
their colleagues and the curriculum
Successful early career faculty and teaching
Passionate
• Enthusiasm is contagious
Caring
• About their subject, about their students’ progress AND well-being, and about
their colleagues and the curriculum
Realistic
• Efficiency is not deficiency
Successful early career faculty and teaching
Passionate
• Enthusiasm is contagious
Caring
• About their subject, about their students’ progress AND well-being, and about
their colleagues and the curriculum
Realistic
• Efficiency is not deficiency
Public
• Open classrooms and curricula
Why bother reflecting on and/or documenting your teaching?
To improve your teaching
 Compare performance over time
 Enable, foster and validate reflective analysis
 Facilitate future planning for teaching
• Reward teaching accomplishments
For career-related reasons
 To increase employability
 To make a case for probation and/or promotion
 To make a case for an award
For other reasons
 To leave a written legacy upon retirement
 To lay the groundwork for publication
•
Reference: Seldin, P. (1997) 2nd ed. The teaching portfolio: A practical guide to
improved performance and promotion/tenure decisions. Bolton, MA: Anker.
Where can you begin? Brookfield’s Four Lenses
1. Self
a) Become a learner again
b) Role Model Profile
c) Teacher Learning Audit
d) Videotaping
2. Students
a) The Minute Paper
b) Letter to Successors
c) The G.I.F.T
3. Colleagues
a) Critical discussion groups
b) Viewing a video
c) Peer observation
4. Research and Scholarship
a) Being a scholarly teacher
b) The scholarship of teaching
Source: Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Scholarly Teaching
1. Clear goals
2. Adequate preparation
3. Appropriate methods
4. Significant results
5. Effective presentation
6. Reflective critique
•
Source: C. Glassick, et al, (1997). Scholarship Assessed San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Role Model Profile …*
Part One: Inspiration

Think about your colleagues and former teachers. Which of them, in
your opinion, best represent what a teacher should be?

What characteristics, actions, and abilities have you observed in these
people that, in your opinion, make them so admirable? List some of
these ideas here.

As a group, share your ideas, then list single words or short phrases
which epitomise the qualities of your teachers
Good Teachers
… Role Model Profile
Part Two: Reflection

Think about your own teaching. List 3 or 4 words or phrases from your
group list which capture best how you think you teach. Create your
own if none are applicable to you.

Does this list contain words/phrases that your students use to describe
you in their evaluations? If not, what words/phrases do your students
use?

Does the list contain terms that colleagues have used to describe your
teaching in letters of reference, in promotion applications, in formal or
informal classroom observation? If not, what words/phrases do your
colleagues use?
… Role Model Profile
Part Three: Application

Pick one term from the list

Define what that term means to you by selecting one example from
your own teaching practice

Share your definition and example with your neighbour, and
compare/contrast responses
* Based on an activity described in S. Brookfield, (1995), Becoming a critically reflective teacher, p. 77, and
adapted by Dr Sydney Shep and Dr Kathryn Sutherland, Victoria University of Wellington, December 2004.
Lenses
The Minute Paper
Please answer each question in 1 or 2 sentences:
1. What was the most useful or meaningful thing you learned during
this session?
2. What question(s) remain upper-most in your mind as we end this
session?
Reference: Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for
College Teachers, (2nd ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 148-153.
Lenses
Letters to Successors
Departing students offer insights about how to survive and flourish in your
classroom.
Possible Themes
 “What I know now about this course that I wish I’d known when I came in”
 “The most important things you should make sure you do to keep your sanity in
this class”
 “The most common and avoidable mistakes that I and others made in this
class”
Possible Activities
 Students could bring their letters to class and, in small groups, share common
themes and decide on what to report back to the whole class.

Alternatively, students could post their letters anonymously using the online
learning management system, for next year’s class to read.

Or, they could share their individual letters in a Blog site, then use a Wiki to
create one letter on behalf of the class.
(Adapted from Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. p. 107)
Lenses
Group Informal Feedback on Teaching: The G.I.F.T. Technique*
Directions: Please write brief, honest, and legible responses to the questions below. (Do not
write your name on this paper.)
1. What are 1 or 2 specific things your teacher does that help you learn in this
course?
2. What are 1 or 2 specific things your teacher does that hinder or interfere
with your learning?
3. Please give your teacher 1 or 2 specific, practical suggestions on ways to
help you improve your learning in this course.
*Also known as Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID)
Reference: Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College
Teachers, (2nd ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 334-338.
Lenses
Five Tips for Successful “Fast Feedback” from Students
1.
If a feedback technique doesn’t appeal to your intuition and
professional judgement as a teacher, then don’t use it.
2.
Try not to make feedback into a self-inflicted chore or burden.
3.
Don’t ask your students to use any feedback technique you
haven’t previously tried on yourself or a colleague.
4.
Allow for more time than you think you’ll need to carry out and
respond to the feedback.
5.
Make sure to “close the loop”. Let students know what you learn
from their feedback and how you and they can use that
information to improve learning.
Adapted from: Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for
College Teachers, (2nd ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 31.
Lenses
Collecting Evidence for a Portfolio
Keep a sunshine folder
 Copies of emails from students
 Thank you letters, notes, cards
 Invitations to talk about your teaching
 Accolades from Heads of Department or from promotion or award
applications
 Professional letters of reference
Keep an artefacts folder
 List of professional development workshops attended and/or presented
 Teaching Performance Profile – a summary of the medians from student
evaluations of teaching
 Comments from student evaluations
 Examples of innovative assessment
 Course outlines
 Teaching conference papers and journal articles
 Reflections on curricula changes
A Few Simple Suggestions for a Critically Reflective Portfolio

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
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

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
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Start early
Keep everything
Organize everything you keep
Articulate your teaching philosophy
Know and respect your readers
Follow directions with care
Honour the criteria given
Design and build a case
Don’t just tell, show
Triangulate
Work with a “buddy”
Three Next Steps
To continue the forward momentum, jot down three practical, positive
next steps you can take to apply and/or follow up on what you’ve
learned and done today.
•
The first step should be one you can actually take in the next few
days.
•
The next, a step you can take within the next month or so.
•
The third, a step you can take to apply what you’ve learned to your
teaching and reflective practice next year.
References and Some Potentially Useful Resources
Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. (1993). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for
College Teachers, (2nd ed.) San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Brookfield, S. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Brookfield, S.D. (2006). 2nd ed. The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust and Responsiveness
in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass
Brookfield, S. D. (2005). The Power of Critical Theory: Liberating Adult Learning and
Teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Wiley.
Chism, N.V.N. (1999). Peer Review of Teaching: A Sourcebook. Bolton, MA: Anker
Publishing.
Glassick, C. et al. (1997). Scholarship Assessed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Hutchings, P. (ed.) (1998). The course portfolio: how faculty can examine their teaching to
advance practice and improve student participation. Washington, DC: American
Association for Higher Education.
Mezirow, J. et al. (1990). Fostering Critical Reflection in Adulthood: A Guide to
Transformative and Emancipatory Learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Pratt, D. (2005). Personal philosophies of teaching: A false promise? Academe, 91 (1): 3236.
Seldin, P. (1997). The Teaching Portfolio: A Practical Guide to Improved Performance and
Promotion/Tenure Decisions, (2nd ed.). Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing.