Embedding your own development in your practice

Reflection prompts, tips for practice, introductory resources, case studies.


Reflection

Practical suggestions to support reflection include:

  • Gather up notes to yourself on an on-going basis, and compile these into a teaching log or diary;
  • Record your teaching experiences systematically;
  • Seek formal recognition for your teaching experiences, for example through the Higher Education Academy and the University's EdTA.

Sharing practice

Sharing practice is one of the most effective ways teachers can learn and continually develop their practice. It is often informal in nature but can powerful have impact. Ways to do this include:

  • Engage in conversations, for example, go for coffee with a student or a colleague;
  • Write a blog post for the University of Edinburgh's Teaching Matters blog about your learning and teaching experience;
  • Present your work to colleagues at a workshop, seminar or at a conference;
  • Add your latest article, blog, output to your email signature;
  • Invite your students to read/discuss/debate your work.

Another useful method to share practice with colleagues is through peer observation of teaching. This is a formative process where two peers work together and observe each other’s teaching. The observer offers feedback to the colleague who is doing the teaching. You can use this IAD Peer Observation guide (16 pages) to help structure their own peer observation practice.

The webpage, Reflecting with others, from the Reflection Toolkit, offers guidance on who, how and why you should ask others to help you reflect on your practice.


Getting feedback from students on their learning and teaching experience

Giving feedback: a student guide (1 page): This document illustrates various feedback mechanisms for eliciting feedback from students on their teaching and learning experience. Though not exhaustive, the options provided each offer unique types of feedback that should be considered in the context of courses and programmes to help close the feedback loop between students providing feedback, and teachers taking action or responding to the feedback. One key mechanism in this process is mid-course feedback at course level.

Student Voice Policy (5 pages): The Student Voice Policy outlines the University of Edinburgh’s approach to engaging our students in dialogue about their teaching and learning and wider student experience. It outlines what mechanisms are in place to support this dialogue at the Course, Programme, School levels across the University as a whole.

Mid-course feedback

Mid-course feedback is feedback provided by students and responded to by staff while a course is running. Such feedback is crucial for:

  • Promoting constructive dialogue between staff and students at an early stage;
  • Allowing staff to identify and respond to student concerns about a course in a timely way (ideally in a way that resolves the matter for the current cohort);
  • Providing staff with an opportunity to explain to students why the course is structured in the way it is and outlining changes that have evolved in response to feedback from previous cohorts.

Read more here: What is mid-course feedback? and Valuing and supporting mid-course feedback by Tina Harrison and Nichola Kett.

Mid-Course Feedback (3 mins): A 4th year student, Nicole Meng reflects on the importance of the mid-course feedback process.

Mid-course feedback: The Institute for Academic Development provides examples of online tools to gather feedback, as well as examples of innovative methods to collect and display feedback.

Reflecting on teaching practice

List of tools for reflection: Taking time to reflect on teaching practice is crucial to professional development. This webpage offers a quick overview of all the reflective tools included in the Reflectors' Toolkit, and a description of the examples provided, including different frameworks and models for reflection and improving self-awareness.


Designing and structuring discussion forums

"Provide guidance for students on how to engage with discussion forums. This guidance may include the following: (1) Use of appropriate topic headings; (2) Guidance on length of post; (3) Use of appropriate language; (4) Appropriately worded replies that keep the discussion flowing (discourage posts saying “yes I agree” or “I disagree”).

For larger cohorts, where students are active contributors, you might find that students become overwhelmed and find it difficult to keep up with posts. Suggest that students login in frequently and focus on topic threads that are of particular interest to them and subscribe to these. This should help them manage the forum. It may also be appropriate for students to take a lead and facilitate for larger forums and provide summaries of discussions at the end of the discussion activity."

What is learning design?

"Approaching learning by design is about considering all the aspects of the teaching and learning experience:

  • What does the learner need to know by the end of the learning experience?
  • How will the learning occur (offline, online or a bit of both)?
  • How will the instructor interact with the learner?
  • How will the learner be assessed?
  • How can we capture data to reflect on the learning?"

BluePulse and continuous course feedback

"Bluepulse is a confidential and anonymous social feedback platform and is being piloted on a number of Business School courses. One tutor in the Law School is also taking part in the pilot. With BluePulse, feedback can be bi-directional and can be instigated by students or staff. This may include:

  • Quantitative feedback: Tutors can deliver scheduled Likert-scale questions or statements through Bluepulse and students can vote on them over the entire length of the course (e.g. “the pace of the lecture today was…”).
  • One-off polls on a particular question (e.g. “What do you think was the key learning point from the lecture today?”).
  • Qualitative feedback: Students can make anonymous and confidential comments, suggestions and open-ended statements at any time (limited to once per day)."

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