Questions about Professional Development

At yesterday's 20803 Teaching Roundtable, a lot of questions came up about the five professional development hours required for graduate instructors each semester. To refresh your memory about what counts as professional development, refer to your teacher's guide: it's in the appendix. Also don't forget that it is also posted on the wiki.

While the information in the teacher's guide is pretty clear, it is not exhaustive, so if you have any questions, see me or Charlotte. A couple of things came up yesterday that were not on the list. For example, 10 Frog Blog entries would count as one professional development hour. Observing a fellow GI's class and writing him or her an observation letter (this would be in addition to the faculty observation letter required for all GI's) would also count as one professional development hour; however, simply asking another GI to observe your class would not count as a PD hour. One idea - partner up with another GI and trade-off observing each other's classes.

Another important tip: continually write down what you've done throughout the semester. Life gets busy, and you are liable to forget. Some activities that you may have taken part in that count as professional development include serving on the composition committee, co-facilitating Teaching Circle, and leading a session at the pre-semester GI workshop.