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Teaching Certificate I Program:
The Sheridan Teaching Seminar

Registration is CLOSED for 2011-2012

This program introduces participants to the basic elements of a reflective teaching practice.

A reflective teaching practice has four fundamental components: an understanding that effective teaching requires careful planning; knowledge of one's audience and the ability to engage different learning styles; a recognition of the importance of establishing learning goals (and means to determine if such goals have been achieved); and a willingness to be innovative.

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Upon completing the Certificate I program, you should be able to:

  • Understand the elements of a reflective teaching practice;
  • Apply a reflective and scholarly teaching practice toward your continual development as a teacher;
  • Identify and articulate learning objectives and describe how they can be used in syllabus planning;
  • Recognize your own learning style and critically evaluate how this may impact on your teaching style and on your assessment strategies;
  • Recognize different assessment approaches and their benefits/drawbacks, and evaluate whether your assessments are aligned with your learning objectives;
  • Formulate a strategy for creating inclusive learning environments through the consideration of cognitive diversity and learning disabilities;
  • Apply reflective practice to the rhetorical choices you make as teachers

 

REQUIREMENTS

The program has four basic requirements:

  1. participation in the Sheridan Teaching Seminar Lectures and Workshops,
  2. participation in a micro-teaching session,
  3. completion of an Individual Teaching Consultation and
  4. submission of a formal summary evaluation.

Each of these requirements is described in detail below.

New rules and requirements for new Certificate I enrollments starting AY2010-11:

  • Certificate I participants must complete the Lecture & Workshop component of the program within ONE academic year. (You are permitted to make up one Lecture and one Workshop, but not from the same grouping, and you must make them up within the current academic year. For further details on make up procedures, see below).

  • Micro-teaching sessions will no longer be conducted by the Departments*. They will be conducted as part of Workshop 5. If you miss Workshop 5, and this is the only workshop you miss, you will be permitted to make up this workshop by attending Workshop 5 in the following academic year.

  • The ITC is most effective when conducted in an authentic teaching situation. We strongly recommend that you conduct your ITC in a real teaching situation to maximally benefit from the ITC. If you are not teaching and unable to arrange for a teaching situation in your department, an ITC may be completed in a subsequent year. You can complete all of your other requirements for Cert I, and then finish your ITC in a subsequent year when you are teaching. If you are able to give a guest lecture, or if you teach in a lab or discussion section, these can count as an ITC. If you will not be teaching during your time at Brown, we suggest that you find an opportunity to give a review session or a journal club presentation in your department.  If you give a journal club presentation, please inform the audience that it will be conducted in a teaching format rather than a traditional journal club.

For Certificate I participants who were enrolled before AY2010-11:

  • You have one (1) year to finish your incomplete requirements for the Certificate I program.
  • Micro-teaching sessions will no longer be conducted by departments.* They will be conducted as part of Workshop 5.
  • If you have completed your micro-teaching requirement, but still need to make up Workshop 5, you must attend the workshop. You do not have to give a micro-teaching presentation, but you will participate in giving feedback to the other participants.

*Exception:
Some departments conduct micro-teaching sessions as part of their departmental TA training or professional development programs.  These sessions will NOT count toward the Certificate I requirements because the Workshop 5 micro-teaching sessions now have different learning goals and contexts.

Sheridan Teaching Seminar Lectures and Workshops

The seminar consists of five lectures, each followed by a relevant interactive workshop, usually held the following week.

Topics: The five Sheridan Teaching Seminar lectures address a variety of topics and issues pertaining to teaching. The topics are:

  1. Developing a reflective teaching practice
  2. Establishing clear course goals in a syllabus
  3. Teaching to different learning styles
  4. Gauging student learning through feedback and assessment
  5. Learning to communicate effectively in the classroom and beyond

Attendance: Teaching Certificate I candidates are expected to attend all five (5) Sheridan Teaching Seminar lecture and workshop units. Because each follow-up workshop builds upon themes raised in the preceding lecture, Teaching Certificate I candidates must attend a unit's lecture before they complete its affiliated workshop assignment and attend the workshop. Candidates who attend a workshop without attending the lecture beforehand will not receive credit for the workshop.

Absences:Under extenuating circumstances, one (1) lecture and one (1) workshop may be made up. 

Caveat 1:  You may not miss both the lecture and the workshop in the same Lecture/Workshop unit. 

Caveat 2:  You may not miss more than one lecture or one workshop within a single academic year. 

Caveat 3:  If you miss workshop #5, you must attend workshop #5 in the following academic year (see below for further information about micro-teaching sessions)

There will be NO EXCEPTIONS to these rules.

  • Lecture: Participants who miss a lecture must view the online video BEFORE attending the workshop.  The video capture link of the lectures can be found in the corresponding Lecture/Workshop folder.  In order to receive credit for a make-up lecture, you must notify the Center by email (sheridan_center@brown.edu) prior to the workshop. Use the following Subject Heading in your email to ensure you'll receive credit - CERT. I LECTURE MAKE-UP.
  • Workshop: Participants who miss any of the Workshops #1 - #4 can make up the workshop by emailing the workshop assignment to the Center NO LATER THAN ONE WEEK after the workshop date in order to receive credit.  If you miss Workshop #5, you must make it up by attending the workshop in the following academic year.  Therefore, you will not receive your Certificate until the next year.

For a full description of lectures click here.


MICRO-TEACHING SESSION

Starting from AY2010-11, the micro-teaching sessions will be conducted as part of Workshop 5, based on the learning goals from Lecture 5 on Teaching as Persuasive Communication.  Participants give a five-minute introduction on a topic of their choice and receive feedback on their teaching and communication style.  The sessions will be conducted within a small group and provide participants with an opportunity to learn how others perceive their rhetorical teaching style, to observe and evaluate a variety of communication approaches, and to learn how to share their observations constructively with others.

Individual Teaching Consultation (ITC)

In an ITC, trained consultants observe and videotape your lecture, discussion section, lab, recitation, etc., and then provide feedback on your teaching methods and style. The instructor (observee) arranges for an Individual Teaching Consultation by filling in an online request form at least two weeks prior to the observed session. In the form, the observee informs the teaching consultants of the goals he/she has set for the specific class they will observe. During the observation, the consultants then assess how well the instructor meets those goals and other aspects of the lesson, such as the kind of learning environment that the instructor creates, how he or she interacts with students, and the pace and volume of the instructor's delivery. After the class, the consultants meet with the observee and provide him or her with a confidential written report of their observations and comments. The observee may keep the videotape for personal reference. For further information, see the ITC procedures.

final evaluation

Because the Sheridan Center believes that the implementation of feedback mechanisms is imperative for success in teaching, each Teaching Certificate I candidate evaluates the Sheridan Teaching Seminar program at the end of the academic year. Filling out the evaluation form which will be sent to you at the completion of the program, is the final requirement for a Teaching Certificate I.

Those enrolled in the Certificate I program can download assignments, lecture handouts, and summaries of workshops at MyCourses (http://mycourses.brown.edu). Note that we cannot post the AuthID and Password required for access to MyCourses, so please email Sheridan_Center@brown.edu to request access once the program has begun.