Teaching Certificate Program

Co-sponsored by the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching and the Graduate School

The Teaching Certificate program has been designed to help graduate students deepen their exploration into teaching and learning by having the opportunity to:

  • approach teaching as an evidence-based and theory-framed endeavor;1

  • uncover their own private theories of teaching and learning and reconcile them with what learning theory and other education research tells us about teaching and learning;2

  • move from concerns of self and survival ("How will students like me?"), to concerns of skills ("How do I lecture?"), and finally to concerns of outcomes ("Are students getting it?");3

  • view teaching as a community endeavor, much as research is viewed as a community endeavor, and not a private process of trial and error.4

The Teaching Certificate program is made up of three cycles, each of which includes phases of inquiry, experimentation and reflection. Each of these cycles, and the in-take and exit interviews, are described below.

In-Take Process

To enroll in the Teaching Certificate program, participants complete the steps listed below.

Step 1: Submit an Online Application

The first step in joining the Teaching Certificate program is to submit an online application. 

Participants are also signed up for the program’s electronic mailing list, which is used to provide ongoing information about the program and reminders of opportunities for competing certain requirements.

Step 2: Write and Submit a Teaching Statement

The participant’s next step is to write a statement of teaching philosophy.  This step is designed to help participants reflect on who they are as a teacher and who they want to be as a teacher.  It also provides CFT staff with insight into participants that is useful in helping them plan their participation in the program.  Participants are likely to find the CFT’s guide on writing teaching statements useful as they complete this step.

Participants then post their teaching statement to their e-portfolio and share it with the CFT.  Instructions for doing so are available here.

Step 3: Participate in an Program Planning Meeting

When the CFT has received a participant’s application and teaching statement, someone from the CFT will be in touch with the participant to schedule an program planning meeting.  The program planning meeting is designed to orient participants to the program, help them identify goals for their development as teachers, and develop a plan for getting meeting those goals through the program.

During the interview CFT consultants—one member of the CFT professional staff and one CFT graduate teaching fellow—work with participants to create a program plan based on their disciplinary context, their interests in teaching, and on their specific professional development goals.  Participants are also given further instructions on using the ePortfolio system, if necessary.

Step 4: Develop a Program Plan

Following the program planning meeting, participants write a plan for their participation in the Teaching Certificate program using the template provided in the participants’ e-portfolio accounts.  This plan will outline their individual goals for participating in the program, the teaching skills and experiences they want to develop, and the activities by which they will complete the requirements of the program.  Most of the time during program planning meetingss will be focused on helping participants develop their program plans, so this step largely consists of documenting that discussion.

Participants post their program plans to their e-portfolios and share them with CFT graduate teaching fellows with whom they met during their program planning meetingss.  Since a participant’s goals and teaching opportunities may change over time, participants should update their program plans after each cycle in the Teaching Certificate program.

Cycle One: Building a Teaching Foundation

The purpose of this cycle is to build a strong foundation of understanding and practice in basic teaching practices. During the cycle, participants will focus on one or more teaching practices to develop and/or refine.

The chosen practices should be relevant to the types of teaching and disciplinary contexts in which participants expect to work in the future. Examples of these practices include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Lecturing
  • Leading Discussions
  • Leading Laboratories
  • Tutoring / Office Hours / One-on-one Teaching
  • Writing Exams
  • Creating Assignments
  • Grading
  • Creating and Maintaining Course Websites

Inquiry:

After identifying their chosen teaching practices, participants attend one or more teaching workshops focusing on those practices. These workshops may be offered by the CFT, an academic department, another unit on campus (e.g., the Writing Studio, the Office of Medical Education), a disciplinary or other professional conference, etc.

After attending each workshop, participants respond to the following questions in a workshop reflection document in their ePortfolio:

  • What are some insights you gained about your teaching practices from the workshop?

  • What are some steps you might take to enact what you've learned?

Additionally, participants are encouraged, with permission, to observe the teaching of others (either faculty members or graduate students) and to meet with the observed teacher afterwards to discuss the observation. These observations and discussions are helpful in gaining exposure to alternate approaches to the identified teaching practices. Participants might find these guidelines for class observations useful. Participants are also encouraged to reflect on these observations in written form in their ePortfolios using the following prompts.

  • What pedagogical choices did the teacher you observed make either prior to or during the class?

  • What were some of the effects of these choices on the students' learning?

  • What pedagogical choices might you make differently in your own teaching as a result of this observation?

Experimentation:

Participants then carry out some of the steps identified in their workshop reflection documents through a classroom observation sequence consisting of the following steps.

  • Scheduling and Sharing

    Participants ready to begin the Experimentation phase contact the CFT by calling 322-7290 or by visiting Calhoun 116 to schedule a classroom observation sequence with a CFT consultant.

    Once this is scheduled, participants share with their consultant materials from their ePortfolio, including their Inquiry phase reflections and their plans for the teaching session to be observed.

  • Pre-Observation Consultation

    During the pre-observation consultation, participants meet with their CFT consultant to identify a particular aspect of teaching they have explored in the Inquiry phase and situate this aspect in the context of the goals for the teaching session to be observed.

  • Classroom Observation

    Participants experiment with the aspect of teaching identified in the pre-observation consultation by teaching a class, discussion session, lab session, or review session, perhaps as part of their teaching assistantship or as a guest lecture in a faculty member's class. The class is observed by the participant's CFT consultant and may optionally be videotaped.

  • Post-Observation Consultation

    During the post-observation consultation, participants and their CFT consultants will discuss the teaching session in light of their discussion in the pre-observation consultation. Questions to reflect upon might include the following.

    • What actions did you take to refine your teaching practices in your targeted areas?

    • How well did those efforts seem to work? Did you discern any impact on student learning?

    • What further refinements would you be interested in making?

For more information, please see these further details on the classroom observation sequence.

Also, the CFT maintains a list of teaching opportunities in and near Vanderbilt for Teaching Certificate participants.

Reflection:

After the post-observation consultation, participants write a summary of their experience in this cycle, reflecting on the following questions in a document in their ePortfolio:

  • Now that you've had the chance to experiment with your teaching practices and to talk about them with a colleague, what are some additional insights you've gained?

  • What questions do you still have that you would like to explore further related to your teaching practices?

Cycle Two: Putting Pedagogical Theory into Practice

In the first cycle, participants' encounters with pedagogical theory are mediated by CFT workshop leaders and consultants.  During the second cycle, participants directly engage the literature that informs the work of the CFT. The second cycle challenges participants to continue the work of the first cycle by interrogating a sample of the academic literature that addresses issues of pedagogy relevant to their discipline. Participants will emerge from the second cycle with a deeper understanding of the issues they explored through the first cycle and a strong foundation for beginning the work of the third cycle.

Inquiry:

During the second cycle, participants explore the established literature on teaching and learning in higher education. Participants may begin the cycle by:

  • participating in a CFT-sponsored Reading Group designed for this purpose or

  • reading selections on a particular topic in preparation for attendance at a CFT workshop (e.g., reading Barbara Walvoord and Virginia Anderson’s Effective Grading in preparation for attending a “Grading at Vanderbilt” workshop or reading selections from The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint and Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative in preparation for “Presenting Data and Information: Lesson from Edward Tufte.”) or

  • conducting a survey of literature on a pedagogical topic relevant to teaching in their discipline and documenting that survey in a brief literature review essay or annotated bibliography.

Following these explorations, participants prepare a brief literature reflection document in their ePortfolio designed to help them answer the following questions:

  • What are some insights you gained about your teaching practices from your encounters with literature on teaching and learning?

  • What are some steps you might take to enact what you've learned?

For more information, please see these further details on the inquiry phase of Cycle Two.

Experimentation:

Participants then apply what they have learned from their exploration of the literature on teaching and learning in higher education through a classroom observation sequence similar to the one in Cycle One. The difference is that in this cycle, participants may be observed in either of the following two settings.

  • Teaching a class, discussion session, lab session, or review session, perhaps as part of their teaching assistantship or as a guest lecture in a faculty member's class, or

  • Facilitating a departmental or discipline-based workshop on a pedagogical topic relevant to teaching in that discipline.

Note that the latter option is not available in the Cycle One classroom observation sequence.

For more information, please see these further details on the classroom observation sequence.

Also, the CFT maintains a list of teaching opportunities in and near Vanderbilt for Teaching Certificate participants.

Reflection:

Participants reflect on their classroom observation sequence differently depending on which teaching setting in which they are observed.

  • If participants taught a class associated with a credit-bearing Vanderbilt course...

    Participants now assess the ways in which exploring the literature and applying it to their teaching changed or refined that teaching in a document saved in their ePortfolio.

  • If participants facilitated a departmental or discipline-based workshop...

    Participants now annotate their workshop lesson plan by indicating what worked well and what they would change were they to facilitate the workshop a second time. These annotated lesson plans are saved in participant's ePortfolios.

Cycle Three: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

In the third cycle, Teaching Certificate participants build upon and synthesize insights gained in previous cycles regarding teaching skills and theories of college pedagogy by designing and implementing a scholarly project on student learning. The goal is for participants to reflect on their own teaching by analyzing evidence of student learning.

During this cycle, participants participate in a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Working Group consisting of other Teaching Certificate participants working on Cycle Three and led by a senior CFT consultant. The purpose of the Working Group is to provide participants with mentoring and feedback on their projects from CFT consultants and from peers engaging in similar projects. (Note that this Working Group is different from the Reading Group available to participants in Cycle Two.)

Inquiry:

Participants first determine the goals of their project by either

  • identifying one or more student learning goals that they wish to achieve in a particular teaching context or

  • identifying one or more questions about student learning that can be answered in a particular teaching context.

See the Examples of Scholarly Projects on Student Learning section below for ideas and inspiration.

Participants then plan a series of teaching and assessment activities in a particular teaching context designed to address the goals or questions under consideration by uncovering evidence of student learning. The activities planned will be shaped by the goals or questions under consideration, the teaching opportunities available to participants, and the insights gained during Cycles One and Two.

Participants then draft a project proposal describing the goals or questions identified and detailing the teaching and assessment activities planned to address those goals or questions. Participant share this proposal with their Working Group to receive feedback and suggestions.

The CFT maintains a list of teaching opportunities in and near Vanderbilt for Teaching Certificate participants. One of these teaching opportunities might provide a venue for a participant's project.

Experimentation:

Participants conduct the teaching and assessment activities detailed in their project proposal. The goal of these activities is to uncover evidence of student learning for later analysis. To that end, participants can invite members of their Working Group to observe some or all of these activities. In addition, participants can have some or all of the activities videotaped by the CFT in order to better document student learning.

Reflection:

Participants then analyze the evidence of student learning gathered during the Experimentation phase.

  • If learning goals were identified in the inquiry phase...

    Participants now attempt to determine if those goals were met during the teaching activities conducted in the experimentation phase by examining evidence of student learning—student comments, behaviors, or written work.

  • If questions about student learning were identified in the inquiry phase...

    Participants now attempt to answer those questions using student comments, behaviors, or written work as evidence.

Note that while participants' personal observations and impressions of the teaching activities they conduct are important to this process, the focus is on reflecting on one's own teaching by analyzing evidence of student learning.

Participants first share the results and analysis of the project with their Working Group, inviting further feedback and suggestions. Then participants share their project in an appropriate public setting—perhaps by giving a presentation in his or her department, at a regional or national conference, a session convened for this purpose by the CFT, or by submitting an article to a journal or other scholarly publication.

After receiving some feedback on their projects by going public, participants create an online project "poster" (similar to what one would see at a poster session at a scholarly conference). They share a copy of these posters with the CFT to be placed in the gallery of Teaching Certificate participants' projects below.

Please see the CFT's Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Teaching Guide for more information on these kinds of projects.

Examples of Scholarly Projects on Student Learning

Exit Interview

As the final part of the Teaching Certificate program, the exit interview provides participants with an opportunity to synthesize and reflect on their experiences in the program.

Prior to the exit interview, participants prepare and submit a synthesis of the materials from their e-portfolio and an updated teaching statement. This synthesis ties together experiences in each of the three cycles and links closely to their updated teaching statement.

After completing the Teaching Certificate program, participants are awarded a Teaching Certificate from the Graduate School during a Celebration of Teaching event, receive a cord to wear during their graduation from the university, and receive special recognition in the printed graduation program.

References

  1. The phrase "evidence-based and theory-framed endeavor" is used by the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Program at Indiana University-Bloomington to describe how they want faculty there to approach teaching.

  2. Jody D. Nyquist and Jo Sprague discuss the role of graduate students' private theories and personal visions about teaching in their development as teaching assistants in their article "Thinking Developmentally About TAs" in The Professional Development of Graduate Teaching Assistants (Anker, 1998), available in the CFT Library.

  3. See the Nyquist and Sprague article for a description of their model of graduate teaching assistant development, from which this progression of concerns is drawn.

  4. Pat Hutchings and Susan E. Clarke discuss the contrast between the community-oriented habits of scholarly researchers and the "pedagogical solitude" (to use Lee Shulman's term) of teachers in higher education in their article "The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Contributing to Reform in Graduate Education" in Paths to the Professoriate: Strategies for Enriching the Preparation of Future Faculty (Jossey-Bass, 2004), available in the CFT Library.


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