Professional Development
Purpose of Portfolio
The purpose of this portfolio is to record aspects of the courses that I have taught as well as to reflect upon the effectiveness of my skill set as an instructor. By continually reflecting upon my teaching experiences, and by continually updating the portfolio, I hope to gain insight into what changes and adjustments I can make to improve.
In addition to my own reflections, I also seek outside input in how to expand the scope of my teaching abilities. In this section of my portfolio, you can find summaries of courses and seminars that I have attended to learn more about how to be an effective teacher.
Courses
Teaching in Higher Education Cornell University (ALS 6015)
In the Spring of 2016, I participated in a course on teaching effectively in higher education. Here's a brief list of the major themes that I took away from the course.
- Active Learning and Peer Instruction
- Importance of Student Feedback
- Course Syllabus Development
- Assessment as Feedback
- Reflecting upon Evidence of Learning
- Empathy and Openness in Science Courses
An Introduction to Evidence-Based Undergraduate STEM Teaching eDX online course, Cornell University CIRTL
In the Fall of 2016, I took an online course that provided an overview of the current trends and research on teaching undergraduates in STEM disciplines. I supplemented the online course with an on-campus discussion group, where each week I could reflect on teaching practices at Cornell with other graduate students and postdocs.
The course served to reiterate and reinforce many of the themes introduced in the course from the previous semester, with some additional emphasis on the importance of the affective domain. That is to say, to keep in mind the motivations and emotional pressures on my students and to develop course designs and classroom management skills accordingly.