This Week for Graduate Students: Get feedback on your teaching from a Teaching Consultant!

by | Jan 25, 2021

Get Feedback on Your Teaching!

If you’re a current instructor or TA, the CTL offers free services that can give you valuable insight on your teaching strengths and paths for improvement. Trained graduate student Teaching Consultants visit your class, debrief with you, and provide you with a confidential report.

Mid-Course Review
In an MCR, a Teaching Consultant gathers feedback from your students about what they find to be helpful and challenging when learning in your course. The Consultant then meets with you to unpack what your students have said. Doing an MCR now can help you make adjustments and improve your students’ experience for the rest of the semester.

To arrange for an MCR, submit a request at least two weeks prior to the date when you would like a Teaching Consultant to visit your class. All MCRs must be completed by March 12th, 2021. Requests for MCRs will close on Friday, February 19th, 2021.

Teaching Observation
In a Teaching Observation, a Teaching Consultant meets with you ahead of time to understand your goals for a class session, attends the session to observe your instruction and student activities, and debriefs with you afterwards. You will receive a confidential report containing observations about how the goals you have set for the class have been met, suggesting future adjustments, and highlighting pertinent resources available to you.

To arrange for a teaching observation, submit a request at least two weeks prior to the date when you would like a Teaching Consultant to visit your class.

Mid-course reviews and teaching observations count towards completion of CTL’s Teaching Development Program for graduate students.

Programs This Week

Teachers’ Lounge | Lessons from a Pandemic: Productive Participation

Teachers’ Lounges are a series of informal discussions about teaching practices and the culture of learning at Columbia. Since many classes have shifted online this year, Teachers’ Lounges are linking theories and models of online instruction to insights derived from working in digital learning spaces with Columbia students.

In this session, we will discuss how to inspire and assess student participation in online or HyFlex classes–and think together about what might map over and enrich in-person instruction.

Date: Wednesday, January 27
Time: 12:10–1:25 PM

CTLgrads Journal Club

Are you interested in the research on teaching and learning and how to apply this research to your teaching practice? Join us for our CTLgrads Journal Club where we will introduce you to the research on teaching various disciplines (also known as Discipline-Based Education Research, or DBER) and engage peer-reviewed articles through our group discussions and contributions to the journal club.

Next session: Thursday, January 28
Time: 2:40 PM–3:55 PM

Spring Seminars

Inclusive Teaching Seminar: Apply by February 3

Conversations about inclusive teaching are increasingly more common on college campuses. Instructors are tasked with understanding and responding to issues of diversity in their classrooms and with articulating their own approach to teaching with an inclusive framework. How can we create classroom environments that set up all students for success? How can we help our students learn through the diversity of experiences and perspectives they bring to the classroom?

Join us for an in-depth series of workshops coordinated with Inclusive Teaching: Supporting All Students in the College Classroom, a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) produced by the CTL that explores the principles and frameworks that define an inclusive teaching practice. The discussion series consists of 6 sessions, each one debriefing a module of the MOOC. You may participate in the full series or attend individual workshops. Applications will be accepted through February 3.

Dates: Wednesdays: February 10, 17, 24; March 10, 17, and 24
Time: 4:00 PM–5:30 PM ET

Evidence-Based Teaching in Science and Engineering: Apply by February 19

In the Evidence-based Teaching in Science and Engineering (ETSE) seminar, you will apply the principles of backward design to develop student learning objectives, aligned assessments, and active learning activities to better facilitate student learning, culminating in a syllabus for a introductory class in your discipline. As part of this seminar, you will take part and contribute to a learning community of teaching practitioners in which you give and receive feedback on assignments by your peers.

This seminar is targeted toward graduate students and postdocs in sciences (natural, biomedical, health) and engineering who are teaching for the first time or looking to advance their teaching by engaging with the research on teaching and learning. Applications will be accepted through February 19. 

Dates: Thursdays: March 11, 18, 25, April 1
Time: 5:00 PM–7:00 PM ET  

CTL Fellowships

Technology and Design Fellow: Apply by February 1

CTL Technology & Design Fellows are Columbia University doctoral students who work closely with the CTL to improve the use of technology in learning. In 2020-21, these fellows are focusing on Mediathread, a web-based community platform that supports multimedia analysis in many courses at Columbia and beyond. 

In Spring 2021, the TDF will be working closely with CTL’s development team on expanding the capacity of Mediathread to support targeted selection, tagging, and recontextualization of PDF documents (in addition to the video, image, and audio formats currently supported on the platform). This paid opportunity is ideal for a current Columbia doctoral students who is interested in user experience and information design, media analysis, and/or educational technology. The deadline for submission is February 1, 2021.

What is it like to teach and learn at Columbia in 2020-2021? Nominate your fellow graduate student instructors to share their story, and share your own*Voices submissions will be showcased at the 2021 Celebration of Teaching and Learning Symposium*