The professor who regularly engages in systematic self-evaluation will unquestionably derive greater reward (and/or potentially less damage) from his or her department's, college's, or university's formal methods of evaluation.
Regular self-evaluation is especially important early in your career as you seek to develop insights and skills to improve your continually evolving teaching style.
One method for providing structure to an ongoing system of self-evaluation is to keep a journal - handwritten, digitally recorded, or electronic - in which you reflect on your teaching experiences.
Regularly invest just five to ten introspective minutes following each class meeting to process and write down the techniques and activities that drew a positive response from students.
Although handwriting your ideas is extremely powerful, if your handwriting is like mine, you may be better off using your word-processing software.
You can also use a program like Dragon Naturally Speaking or some other voice recognition software that will capture what you say.
When you are reflecting on your teaching (and capturing your thoughts) focus on the strategies and events in class that you feel could be improved along with those that you could tell worked well.
Putting your thoughts into words and editing them to reflect your precise ideas and emotions enables you to develop more effective habits and build confidence in your teaching performance.
Consider investing additional self-evaluation time at the midpoint of your course, much the same way a business conducts an audit or an institution conducts a self-study as a component of the accreditation process.
The key is to begin your self-assessment early in the course and to synthesize your findings with informal inputs from students and peers to develop a valid assessment of your strengths and needs at any particular point (Chism, 1999).
As you strive help students master your course material, regularly query yourself using the following questions:
Write out your answers and keep them for future reference.
Decide whether you need to change direction or just stay on course (Fink, 1995).
You are ultimately responsible for the success of your course.
Taking a few minutes each week to reflect and be mindful of what is working and what could be improved is a wise investment indeed.
Strategic professors know that mindfulness and reflection make a difference.
Regular self-evaluation is especially important early in your career as you seek to develop insights and skills to improve your continually evolving teaching style.
One method for providing structure to an ongoing system of self-evaluation is to keep a journal - handwritten, digitally recorded, or electronic - in which you reflect on your teaching experiences.
Regularly invest just five to ten introspective minutes following each class meeting to process and write down the techniques and activities that drew a positive response from students.
Although handwriting your ideas is extremely powerful, if your handwriting is like mine, you may be better off using your word-processing software.
You can also use a program like Dragon Naturally Speaking or some other voice recognition software that will capture what you say.
When you are reflecting on your teaching (and capturing your thoughts) focus on the strategies and events in class that you feel could be improved along with those that you could tell worked well.
Putting your thoughts into words and editing them to reflect your precise ideas and emotions enables you to develop more effective habits and build confidence in your teaching performance.
Consider investing additional self-evaluation time at the midpoint of your course, much the same way a business conducts an audit or an institution conducts a self-study as a component of the accreditation process.
The key is to begin your self-assessment early in the course and to synthesize your findings with informal inputs from students and peers to develop a valid assessment of your strengths and needs at any particular point (Chism, 1999).
As you strive help students master your course material, regularly query yourself using the following questions:
- Am I open to new ways of seeing issues, or do I have all of my answers already?
- Am I trying new things or am I limited by old approaches?
- Do I inspire my students or stultify them?
- Do I validate others and myself, or do I disparage?
- Do I actively seek challenges, or am I comfortable with the status quo?
- Am I tenacious, or do I give in or give up?
- Am I described as enthusiastic or bland?
- Do I regularly demonstrate that I am a learner as well as a teacher?
- Am I setting new goals or wishing things would be different?
Write out your answers and keep them for future reference.
Decide whether you need to change direction or just stay on course (Fink, 1995).
You are ultimately responsible for the success of your course.
Taking a few minutes each week to reflect and be mindful of what is working and what could be improved is a wise investment indeed.
Strategic professors know that mindfulness and reflection make a difference.
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