Jumpstart your plans for a Teaching-as-Research (TAR) project in this 6-week flipped course designed to guide participants through developing a research question, identifying project methods and outcomes, and more. Each week, students will watch videos, read articles, and complete assignments on their own time; in weekly sessions, students will refine their work with peer review, work through sticking points with instructors, and build community to sustain their work. Throughout the course, students will also be expected to meet occasionally with a local TAR contact (typically the person at your CIRTL member institution who mentors TAR students and/or runs your institution’s TAR program) to refine key components of your TAR project plan. By the end of the course, students will present a TAR project plan and be well-positioned to implement their project in the coming academic year.

Registration Closed

What is Teaching-as-Research?

Teaching-as-Research (TAR) takes a deliberate and systematic approach towards investigating, reflecting on, and improving one’s own teaching. The TAR process follows an inquiry cycle that consists of the following stages: identifying of a challenge within the context of teaching and learning, delving into the relevant scientific literature, designing a project to elucidate why the challenge occurs or designing a teaching intervention to address the challenge, implementing the project, collecting data, analyzing the data, drawing conclusions, and reflecting on the experience. TAR is a proactive and dynamic approach towards improving your teaching and document your teaching effectiveness. A TAR experience will provide a substantial example of your reflective, professional practice applicable to a range of career outcomes.

Course Schedule

This 6-week course has weekly online sessions on Tuesdays at 3-4:30PM AT / 2-3:30PM ET / 1-2:30PM CT / 12-1:30PM MT / 11AM-12:30PM PT from June 22 through July 27.

Workload

Your instructors estimate students will need to spend 6-8 hours per week on work outside of class sessions including: watching videos, reading articles, completing assignments, meeting with your local TAR contact, and reviewing peer group work so that you can provide in-session feedback.

Registration and Enrollment

This course is limited to 20 students. This course is at capacity as of May 20.

Registration is open Monday, May 3 and closes when capacity is reached or Friday, June 4, whichever comes first. Upon registering, students will be directed to complete a course application to explain their teaching and learning experience, and their interest in TAR. Instructors will accept students on a first-come first-served basis providing they meet course requirements in their application. Students are expected to have a working knowledge of, and experience with, evidence-based teaching methods. As minimum prerequisites, we expect students will have met these CIRTL Associate-level learning outcomes:

• Describe and recognize the value of realistic well-defined, achievable, measurable, and student-centered learning goals.
• Describe several known high-impact, evidence-based effective instructional practices and materials and recognize their alignment with particular types of learning goals.
• Describe several assessment techniques and recognize their alignment with particular types of learning goals.

Accessibility

We strive to be inclusive of anyone interested in participating in our activities. If you have specific accessibility needs, please contact us at info@cirtl.net in advance so that we may make the necessary accommodations.

Learning Outcomes

Associate: Learning-through-Diversity

• Describe the scope of diversity in learning environments, of both students and instructor. (*Including but not limited to backgrounds, race, gender, ability, socio-economic status, ethnicity, gender preference, and cognitive skills)
• Describe the impact of diversity on student learning, in particular how diversity can enhance learning, and how inequities can negatively impact learning if not addressed.
• Describe how an instructor’s beliefs and biases can influence student learning.
• Describe and recognize the value of drawing on diversity in the development of teaching plans (including content, teaching practices and assessments) to foster learning.
• Describe several learning-through-diversity (LtD) techniques and strategies.

Associate: Teaching-as-Research

• Define and recognize the value of the Teaching-as-Research process, and how it can be used for ongoing enhancement of learning.
• Describe a “full-inquiry” cycle.

Practitioner: Evidence-Based Teaching

• Integrate one or more evidence-based teaching strategies into a teaching plan so as to accomplish learning goals.

Practitioner: Learning-through-Diversity

• Examine and describe own beliefs and biases, including how they may influence their students’ learning.
• Create a teaching plan that incorporates content and teaching practices responsive to the students’ backgrounds.
• Integrate one or more LtD techniques and strategies in a teaching plan so as to use students’ diversity to enhance the learning of all.

Practitioner: Teaching-as-Research

• Show the integration of Evidence-Based Teaching, Learning Communities and Learning-through-Diversity to accomplish learning goals.
• Describe how to access the literature and existing knowledge about teaching and learning issues, in a discipline or more broadly.