Teaching Workshops
Department of Criminal Justice
Temple University
Spring 2009
Assignments
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Assignment 1 - due BY Session 1
PREPARE YOUR STATEMENT OF TEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Parameters: 500 - 1,000 words, typed double spaced. Bring two copies to class.
Purpose. You will begin to think in broad terms about how you will approach college teaching, and how that approach links to who you are including your own personal experiences as a person and a student, as an instructor if you already have been one, your values, and your worldview.
To Prepare. Read the readings listed for session 1.
Background. At some point in the future, you may be submitting a teaching portfolio as part of a job application. Typically the first item in a teaching portfolio is a statement about teaching philosophy.
That may sound intimidating. You may wonder: does philosophy mean I have to mention philosophers like Plato, Schopenhauer, Spinoza and Kant and lots of other dead white males? Suppose I never had a philosophy course? No, this is not what it means.
Rather, what is usually included in this section are your views about how you approach college teaching. This could include a range of topics: reminiscences about the best teacher you ever had and what he/she brought to the classroom; your personal views about the field of criminal justice (is it more important for students to understand the reasoning behind key Supreme Court cases than the specific steps of criminal justice processing, and if so why, and how do you bring this into various courses?), how you have learned or what you think about how students learn, the challenges facing criminal justice undergraduate education today (what does it say about the discipline if most majors graduate without ever having been inside a jail or prison or spoken with an ex-felon or talked with a police officer about her job, or witnessed a bail hearing?), or how the criminal justice major fits into a liberal arts worldview (Flanagan, Timothy. J. 2000. Liberal education and the criminal justice major. Journal of Criminal Justice Education 11:1-14).
Whatever goes into your philosophy statement, it needs to reflect you, to be organized and thoughtful rather than just a list, and to be genuine. Those reviewing your application and interested in you as a teacher as well as a scholar will be basing their first impressions on this material.
It does not have to be laden with footnotes and references. On the other hand, those reviewing your application will probably look favorably upon a teaching philosophy that connects in some way with the scholarship about teaching. If you have pulled in outside sources and use them in an organic way in the statement, it could help make the point that you are reflective and informed. Whatever you put in, make it genuine. For example, do not reference the philosopher Thomas Dewey unless you have read that material and reflected on how it might apply to your teaching.
If you already have been a primary instructor and have had key experiences shape your views, mention those.
If you are just starting out, say that and talk about the path you are trying to forge, and how you will know how successful you have been.
Assignment 2 - DUE BY Session 2
Parameters: prepared five minute lecture segment, including PowerPoint and/or worksheets as needed
Purpose. To practice developing a lecture segment, including the related materials.
To Prepare. Read the readings listed for session 2.
Background. You are developing a short lecture segment for this course you are planning to teach. It is only a five minute segment. You will want to think carefully about
a) what are the goals of this segment - what are the key ideas/framework/concepts/questions you hope to address?
b) exactly how much material are you able to cover in a short segment? Beware the temptation to pack in too much materials.
c) how will you structure the classroom aids? Will there be PowerPoint or not? If yes, why? If not, why not? Will there be handouts or worksheets?
d) How will you engage the students in this segment? Will you use fill in the blank handouts? Or will you give them a handout where they have to write answers to questions and stop at certain points for this to happen?
e) How will you gauge students' reactions?
f) How do you plan to deliver this? Will you have an accompanying script or notes or not? Where will you be in the classroom as you do this?
Assignment 3 - DUE BY Session 3
Parameters: 500 - 1,000 words, typed, double spaced, with all instructors anonymized (instructor A, B, C, Course X, Y, Z). Do not tell me or any classmates which instructors or which courses are reflected in the write up. You are writing up your in-class observations on (preferably) three (but at least two) different in-class observations of different Temple instructors teaching Temple undergraduates. You do not want to observe the same instructor twice. Each observation should be about a half hour. For each observation, write up a) the class setting (e.g., how many students), b) what was the instructor doing (lecturing, reviewing for a test, conducting group exercise, explaining homework problems...), c) two or three things that the instructor was doing that you thought were distinctive/important/different/innovative/thoughtful/helpful and why, and d) at least a couple of comments suggesting how the students were reacting to this segment, and any thoughts about why they were reacting this way. Try to be specific about the evidentiary basis on which you are characterizing students' reactions. Note, given individual differences, reactions around the classroom may be varied. Further, and perhaps as importantly, write up what you felt to be, upon reflection, some of the key differences observed, either on the instructor side or the student side or both, in these three different observations.
Purpose. There are several purposes to this assignment. They include a) just looking at different teaching styles to begin to get a sense of the range of approaches operating just in the neighborhood; b) to practice looking at what is happening in a classroom and keying in on important things the instructor is doing; c) to practice trying to observe and characterize students' reactions, an important skill as an instructor; d) to reflect on the implications of these differences observed.
To Prepare. Contact each instructor beforehand. Explain that you are trying to complete a series of observations for the teaching workshops and that you seek the instructor's permission to come and observe about a half hour of a class. You are interested in observing any type of in-class activity except test taking. Would it be ok to observe? Explain that no individual instructors or courses will be identified when the class discusses these observations. If he or she says yes, and you set a date, send a follow up email thanking him/her and confirming the time/place you will be observing. After the observation, send each instructor a thank you note.
Background. Read the readings. Further, before you observe, take a look at the section Classroom Observation Items in Chapter IV - Criteria for Evaluating Data on Teaching of the Cornell University Teaching Evaluation Handbook.
This can be found online at: http://www.clt.cornell.edu/resources/teh/ch4.html
This lists several things to look for in a classroom setting.
You do NOT have to use these, but they at least give you a sense of the kinds of things that research suggests are important.
Assignment 4 - DUE BY Session 3
Parameters: Prepare an assignment that will be graded for the hypothetical course you are developing. The assignment should include the assignment itself and the grading rubric. The assignment itself should state a) the purpose, and b) exactly what the student product should contain. You also want to think about how you are going to give the students feedback and and where in the course sequence this assignment will take place, and how much of the course grade it will count for.
Purpose. The assignment represents an example where you link your teaching philosophy, course goals, course content. Feel free to think as innovatively as you wish: in-class debates, group-based real-world problem solving, a business memo, mime, shadow puppet theatre, reaction papers to ... well ... just about anything course related
To Prepare. Do the reading. Pay close attention to Lang's "innovative assignments" list (p. 133), and reflect on that. Bat around ideas with fellow students.
Background. Every time you assign and structure and grade and give feedback on an assignment, all those activities