Regularly evaluate and reflect on their professional practice and dispositions to improve and strengthen their ability to effectively model and facilitate technology-enhanced learning experiences rich professional learning programs that model principles of adult learning and promote digital age best practices in teaching, learning, and assessment. (ISTE 2011)
As part of my SPU master’s program, I was asked to work with a peer to improve an existing lesson plan. This was a great opportunity for me, as I share several courses with other faculty that required curriculum updates. The one that needs the most work is CSD 228 – Programming in C#. This is the lesson plan I first chose for my peer coaching project.
I started out by arranging a face-to-face meeting with all of the faculty that teach CSD 228 – past and present. This was no small task, as the group consisted mostly of adjunct faculty. In short, the meeting did not go as well as I hoped, as detailed in my reflections on peer coaching. It did serve as a valuable lesson for me in understanding the importance of building trust and working toward shared goals with my peers.
“Team Building” by BhaduriAbhijit is licensed under CC BY 2.0
I also had a valuable outcome from this failed meeting – the formation of a faculty learning community. We agreed that the discussion in the meeting was very valuable – something that we should find more time to do in the future. We agreed to meet at the end of future quarters to discuss what went well and what could have gone better in the most recent quarter. We came up with a simple, iterative model to solve problems in the future.
References
- Foltos, L. (2013). Peer Coaching : Unlocking the Power of Collaboration. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin. Chapters 9 & 10.
- International Society for Technology in Education. (ISTE; 2011). Standards for Coaches. https://id.iste.org/docs/pdfs/20-14_ISTE_Standards-C_PDF.pdf.