Be reflective

What?

Reflection is the structured process of thinking about your teaching impact and using your insights to guide changes to your practice.

Why?

Reflecting on your teaching will help you to recognise successes and continuously improve.

How?

Independent reflection

• Watch your own video.
• Consider what worked well and what you would like to improve in previous courses
  • Block time out at regular intervals to reflect while things are still fresh.
• Consider the context of the course: think about who you students are, their aims and goals, and institutional context.
• Try CeTTL’s Universal Design self-reflection tool.

Reflecting with peers

• Organise peer observation of live or online classes, asking for feedback on assessments and teaching resources.
• Micro-teaching, the process of reflecting with peers on a selected small component of a lesson, has been shown to be particularly effective.
• Interview a colleague: ask if you can see a colleague’s online course, or ask them about their design choices.
• Ask your tutor or demonstrator for feedback: they can offer a different perspective on design and have great insight into student learning (especially when interacting with them in smaller groups, such as labs, tutorials or discussions.)

Reflecting with student feedback

• Build formative and summative opportunities for practice into courses to make student thinking visible (polls, discussions, regular assessments.)
• Review and consider previous student feedback.
• Design opportunities for students to give you feedback during the course in addition to the end-of-course paper evaluations.
• Respond to this feedback visibly so that students know that it is valued

Reflect with a teaching developer from CeTTL

• We offer appointments online or face-to-face to discuss your online course design, and help you reflect and develop next steps. Email cettladmin@waikato.ac.nz
• Upon request, we can observe your classes or provide feedback on course materials.