What can instructors submit for feedback and how do Student Teaching Consultants provide feedback?
You are welcome to submit any course syllabus for review and feedback, and we encourage you ask specific questions you are invested in better understanding from a student perspective. Student Teaching Consultants provide insights by offering overviews, asking questions, and providing suggestions informed by their experiences and research-based strategies in teaching and learning.
You are welcome to submit the assignment, project, and/or prompt expectations as you share them with your students in your courses. We encourage you to ask specific questions about the document as this will inform how Student Teaching Consultants read it and provide feedback. We draw on from Transparency in Learning and Teaching to review and provide feedback on assignments or project expectations. Student Teaching Consultants use a transparent design template to provide insights, ask questions, and provide suggestions informed by their experiences and research-based strategies in teaching and learning.
You are welcome to submit any assessment and/or feedback frameworks, such as course grading policies, rubrics for specific assignments, guidelines or checklist expectations. We encourage you to ask specific questions related to these documents for meaningful review and feedback. Student Teaching Consultant draw on Transparency in Learning and Teaching, and culturally negotiated assessment strategies to inform their reviews and feedback via a set of guided questions.
You are welcome to submit your Teaching Philosophy Statements along with any document for feedback as these statements help our Student Teaching Consultants better understand your goals, values, and intentions as an instructor. Research demonstrate that effective teaching philosophy statements are linked to good teaching, which is linked to active learning and student success (Schönwetteret al., 2002;Titus & Grembler, 2010; Winklemes, 2013). OurStudent Teaching Consultants are prepared to review and provide feedback on teaching philosophy statements informed by best-practices in writing effective teaching philosophy statements and strategies in teaching and learning.
You are welcome to submit other teaching documents, such as mini-lectures, in-class activities, mini in-class reflections, mid-term reflection surveys, etc. These documents are reviewed by drawing on Transparency in Learning and Teaching.
What other support does CTE SaLT HSI offer?
Our Student Partners in Teaching are available to collaborate with you to design a series of questions for anonymous questionnaires and/or focus groups centered on collecting feedback from students enrolled in your courses to learn more about their learning experiences and your teaching practices. The questions can be co-designed with you and the Student Partner in Teaching can collect responses and/or conduct the focus groups as you see fit. Subsequently, they will provide you with the anonymous responses as well as a short overview report from a student perspective.
After you receive feedback from Student Teaching Consultants on teaching documents, you are welcome to schedule one-on-one conversations with the student partner who provided you with feedback.
We also offer a professional development series titled, "Colaborando in Teaching & Learning: A Student and Faculty Professional Development Partnership Series” where instructors across academic disciplines can be paired with trained CTE Student Teaching Consultants in a semester-long partnership and professional development series. Student Teaching Consultants conduct weekly observations, review, and provide feedback on teaching materials, co-design feedback on teaching surveys or focus groups, and co-design teaching activities. Research demonstrates that effectiveness of instructional strategies must happen in conversation with students, especially instructional practices that aim to be accessible educational environments.
Please contact the Center for Teaching Excellence (cte@utrgv.edu) and/or Dra. Alyssa Cavazos (alyssa.cavazos@utrgv.edu) with any inquiries related to SaLT HSI.
To learn more about the submission process for Student Teaching Consultant Feedback, please visit this page on our website.