Do you have a new teaching idea you'd like to explore? Or would you like to experiment with a teaching innovation in your classroom while having the support of a group of faculty members? If so, CTL's new Reflective Teaching Badge program may be for you!
At the Center for Teaching and Learning we engage thousands of educators each year with professional development opportunities to enhance teaching and learning. However, engaging in professional development around teaching is only the first step to teaching improvement. To actually make a positive impact on your students, you need to apply those great ideas to your teaching practice. Submitting reflections towards the Reflective Teaching Badge provides a forum for documenting these changes and recording the impact you observe on student learning.
In addition, participating in the program will help you document the ways you are making your teaching more effective. As Georgia Tech expands its emphasis on teaching effectiveness to support student success, having this documentation will be useful!
We've put together these ideas for what to do with your Reflective Teaching Badge after you've earned it!
How do I participate in the Reflective Teaching Badge Program?
- Engage in one or more professional development experiences with Georgia Tech colleagues focused around teaching
- Reflect on questions about your teaching challenges, ideas for addressing the teaching challenge, and impact of the teaching change on your students.
- Submit a brief written reflection summarizing the key insights you took away about your teaching, including plans for implementing new teaching ideas and observations/expectations about the impact of the changes on your students. (Please note that a Georgia Tech login is required to make a submission.)
- Earn a token following the receipt of each written reflection.
- Earn the Reflective Teaching Badge for the current academic year after completing three tokens.
- The best teachers are always learning and growing as educators. This is why, you may earn a new Reflective Teaching Badge each academic year.
Why engage in reflection about teaching?
The inspiration for the Reflective Teacher badge comes from the combined wisdom of two important teaching and learning books. In Small Teaching, James Lang advocates for making small changes that have a positive impact on our teaching. For the “reflective” part of the Reflective Teacher badge, we drew inspiration from Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher by Stephen Brookfield. Brookfield argues that attention to the impact that changes we make to our teaching practice have on student learning is critical to supporting our growth as educators. We have structured the requirements of the badge to support your reflective practice.
The intent of the program is to foster a community of instructors who will support each other in trying out innovative teaching ideas and documenting their effectiveness. We hope that you will join us!