Instructional Coaching
Interested in working in partnership with a TLTC staff member over a longer term to focus on your own teaching goals and grow professionally in your teaching? Consider applying for an Instructional Coaching Partnership, where you work one-on-one with an instructional coach over approximately six sessions during the semester, with up to two in-class feedback, observation, or small group diagnosis sessions.
- A plan to work with an instructional coach where you identify one or more areas of your teaching that you would like to change or improve upon. You meet weekly or biweekly, where you set goals around your teaching, and collaborate on ways to both improve and assess the effectiveness of your teaching goal(s).
- Six coaching sessions (virtual or in-person or a combination) with a TLTC instructional coach during a specific semester (Fall, Spring, Summer).
- Up to two in-class visits/partnerships with a TLTC instructional support team member, which can include a class observation, small group diagnosis, and/or other forms of informal feedback or collaboration.
- A dedicated, persistent, collaborative, and confidential process, with documentation you can choose to include or not include in your professional teaching documents.
Instructional coaching is not meant to be prescriptive, nor is it a part of a personnel or remediation plan.
An instructional coach can walk with you for a semester in partnership, collaboration, and support. Everyone has their own reason for considering it, but some ideas are below:
- We often have aspects of our teaching that require more than a one-time consultation. Working with a colleague over the course of a semester where you jointly identify what you would like to work on, make changes, and assess how they worked, can be a useful method in improving.
- We often have ideas of all of the wonderful improvements we will make to our courses the "next" time we teach a course, but as we get busy it is easy to let it go. This is one way to move forward on your own ideas.
- Maybe you have wanted to try a new teaching technique or pedagogy in your course, or want to try something that feels slightly "risky". Having an instructional coach walk that journey with you can encourage you to try things that perhaps you wouldn't do on your own.
- Perhaps you would like help navigating your role as an instructor in the ever-changing landscape of higher education and student expectations.
- Other ideas might include but are not limited to: to improve in one or more areas of your teaching evaluations, you have ideas for revamping a course and want to brainstorm with someone around how they align with research-based best practices, you are making a change and want some feedback on effectiveness over time.
Instructional coaching is available to all instructors and offered on a rolling basis, and priority for enrollment will be given to instructors of record at UMD (PTK, tenure-track, adjunct) who have taught at UMD for at least two full semesters.
Please email us at any time to learn more and discuss how this program may work for you.