Reflective Teaching
Thanks to Elise Martin of Middlesex Community College for submitting the following Summer Institute session summary:
Session Title: Reflective Teaching (6/24/04)
Presenters: Judith Kamber
jkamber@necc.mass.edu and Barbara Stachniewicz
bstachniewicz@necc.mass.edu, Northern Essex Community College, Haverhill, MA
In collecting evaluative data from faculty and staff on the college’s professional development offerings, traditionally workshops and professional days, it became evident to the director of and faculty advisors for Professional Development at Northern Essex Community College that what faculty liked most about these offerings was the opportunity to share with their colleagues in meaningful dialogue. Thus, this department’s focus has shifted to investigating strategies that create opportunities for meaningful dialogue among faculty in a systemic fashion.
The first outgrowth of this investigation was the creation of a professional development model called
Teaching in Community – TIC. The purpose of TIC is “to encourage and support faculty in creative exploration of experimentation with, and reflection on teaching and learning. … This project draws on the extensive research in faculty development which demonstrates the crucial importance of "reflection" and "partnering" in teaching…. (It) provides participants with the opportunity, space, and time to explore teaching and learning. Faculty will engage in activities that allow them to reflect on what they do, how they do it, and why they do it.” TIC has now been in existence at NECC for five years, and accepts 8-10 new faculty members (FT or PT) each year, for a stipend of $750/semester at present.
The structure of TIC includes:
* a day-long retreat early in the fall semester
* four group meetings per semester, usually held as Friday evening dinner meetings
* working with a partner to observe each others’ classrooms and provide each other with support and feedback, focusing on “what I do in the classroom, who I am in the classroom, and why I do what I do in the classroom”.
* readings, currently The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer and Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher by Stephen Brookfield
* a 3-day spring retreat (held in Geneva Point, NY)
Judith also spoke about the importance of “a home, an owner, and a budget” to any successful professional development program.
At this Carnegie session, we discussed Stephen Brookfield’s premise of using the following four critically reflective lenses to examine our practice:
* our autobiographies as Learners and Teachers
* our students’ eyes (we discussed the value of collecting regular student feedback to inform us of the student perspective on who we are, how things are going in the class, what their experience is like, etc.)
* our colleagues’ experiences
* theoretical literature
Finally, we worked in small groups to discuss questions about reflective teaching and learning, and community, at both the personal and institutional level. Again and again, feedback to existing professional development programs echoed the following comments: “Slow down, I want to work for an entire semester on just this one thing!”, and “The best professional development feeds your soul, as opposed to offers you a new technique to try.”