4 Teaching
With approximately 11 years of varied teaching experience, I have had many opportunities to learn and grow as an educator. As early as 2008, while I was still an undergraduate student, I was facilitating workshops and training new volunteers for the University of Windsor’s Students Orienting Students program and the Distress Centre of Windsor-Essex County. Through these experiences, I began to value active learning, scaffolding, formative feedback, and universal design – though I had yet to adopt such language to describe it.
Training and Experience
My first three years as a graduate assistant (GA), I was the lead GA and course co-coordinator for both introductory psychology courses. In this role, I was largely responsible for administration duties, student communication, exam creation, and the development and management of lab session plans and materials. This was great experience, but I knew I wanted to have teaching duties in my future assistantships, so I sought out the Social Science Research Methods and Effective Writing courses.
As a lab instructor for research methods, I was able to work closely with the professor to design engaging lab sessions, redesign course assessments, and co-develop grading rubrics. Because GAs do not receive formal student evaluations of teaching (SETs), I created my own feedback survey which was also adopted by other GAs, to obtain feedback from the students. Over three terms I revised the survey to include more qualitative items, and to solicit feedback on specific aspects of my teaching.
In Winter 2016, after completing the course Learning Centred Teaching for Higher Education, I was tasked as the instructor for two sections of Effective Writing II, and received my first official SETs (please see Appendix B). This experience was beneficial to my professional development in many ways. Notably, I was frustrated with the design of the lesson plans and assessments. I found them too simple and rigid for the content matter, and far less engaging than they could have been. However, because the lesson plans often took up less time than the allotted 50 minutes, I would incorporate my own activities at the beginning and end of the sessions, integrating a review of old material with the application of new concepts. Navigating the organization of that course, along with completing the Constructive Alignment for Course Design course during the same term, motivated me to take on a course of my own.
In the Spring 2016 semester, I had the pleasure of teaching Introduction to Psychology as a Behavioural Science. Being assigned the role less than two weeks in advance, I had a large job in developing the syllabus for my first course. However, I was armed with a large toolbox of teaching methods, design principles, and assessment strategies. And instead of adopting the syllabi of those before me, I ventured to adapt the course by integrating more active learning practices, in-class assessments, a flexible homework assignment, and exams with fewer multiple-choice and more applied written questions. This created a lot more work, but I was fortunate to have two GAs help with the grading, feedback, and administration. I also saw an increase in my SET scores (please see Appendix B), reflecting the care I put into the design of the course and the promotion of student learning.
Since then, I have completed two additional non-teaching GAships, guest-lectured and have facilitated workshops, continuing to develop my instructional skills and values.
Pedagogy and Design
As mentioned above, I have worked to enact my own values in my teaching practices, navigating systems that do not always support pedagogical change. The most notable example is when I taught Introduction to Psychology as a Behavioural Science for the first time and adapted the course on my own accord. When my students surpassed my expectations and earned a course average of 73%, I was faced with defending this to the department, since it was 3-5% higher than the target average for such a large, introductory course. However, I was able to explain my pedagogical approach of constructively aligning the course, promoting the active engagement of students, and improving the course assessments (not just making them easier). Much of my pedagogy has been informed by constructivism and social learning, with new contributions from the area of critical pedagogy, which is demonstrated more through my support of others’ teaching than my own (since I haven’t taught a course since 2016). Mostly, I recognize traditionally oppressive practices and act to ensure equity in the design of teaching and learning opportunities; this includes my new orientation toward open practice.
In Appendix C, you will find the supplementary syllabus I created for the psychology course, evidencing my supportive pedagogical style. Appendix D includes a sample lesson plan and Appendix E includes samples of in-class activities and assignments, including feedback from me.
Feedback and Student Evaluations of Teaching
I value feedback and seek opportunities to receive it whenever I can. Through my multiple teaching experiences, as well as my professional development activities, I have obtained forms of both solicited and unsolicited feedback using varied evaluation forms, surveys, and informal requests.
The overall rating for my sections of Effective Writing was 4.9, which fell in the lower end of the spectrum for this course with other scores ranging from 4.4 to 6.4. The lower item ratings were for the timeliness of grading (4.5), and the overall value of learning (4.4). While I certainly would never disregard this feedback, I should contextualize by saying that all in-class assignments were handed back the following class one week later; and students received feedback for their larger assignments within two weeks. These guidelines were given by the course coordinators, and upheld by both the undergraduate teaching assistants (TAs) and me. My overall instructor score was 5.5, which was lower than I had hoped for. The items rated lowers for my instruction were my enthusiasm for the material (5.3), and my ability to stimulate students’ interest (4.9). Because these are closely related (how can I stimulate interest if I, myself, find the material uninteresting?), it makes sense that they clustered at the lower end of my ratings. The remaining items had scores between 5.5 and 5.7. Overall, students thought I was an effective speaker who incorporated appropriate examples and used instructional time well. Upon reflection, I began to monitor how I present myself during classes in which I am not completely invested. In all honesty, I applied for the position because I wanted the teaching experience, and not because I wanted to teach basic writing skills. That being said, my value of student support, engagement, and motivation are ever-present, and I would like to ensure I meet my personal goals through all of my teaching practices.
Fortunately, I was able to raise my SET scores as a sessional instructor. When I was assigned this course, I had only ten days to prepare before the start of classes; so, receiving a 5.6 course score, and a 6.0 instructor score was acceptable to me. Again, students seemed to have the biggest problem with the timeliness of feedback (5.2). In retrospect, it would have been useful to know which assessments they were most concerned about, since weekly assignments were returned within one week, and the homework within two weeks. I have considered this in my course design experience since then, seeking to make expectations clearer and ensure proper resources to help get students the feedback they need when they need it most.
Generally, for the psychology course, students reported being most pleased with my enthusiasm for the course material, my approachability and accessibility, the consistent course expectations, the appropriate course format and evalutations, and the overall learning experience. Of note, students also rated my ability to speak clearly and effectively quite highly, in contrast to earlier evaluations – which demonstrates progress. In addition, only five or fewer students (out of 64) indicated I was only adequate (or worse) on any given item for instruction. As a first-time sessional instructor, this indicated to me that I was doing something right. And while I may not please every student, my approach worked for the majority, and the items most relevant to my teaching philosophy came out on top.
I have included my SET reports in Appendix B, and samples of other feedback in Appendix C.