Teaching Partners Program

CELT Teaching Partners Program

The CELT Teaching Partners Program, a cohort-based teaching and learning community, supplements departmental mentoring by pairing a new instructor with a senior instructor from a different discipline who is a successful and experienced teacher. Junior partners should be in their second or third year at Iowa State University. Partners discuss teaching and learning topics, complete classroom observations, and focus on documenting teaching effectiveness for continuous improvement in teaching portfolios.

 

Overview

The partnership runs for the entire academic year. The Teaching Partners Program includes:

  • Meeting monthly with your teaching partner to discuss issues pertinent to teaching and learning. Previous partnerships have taken broad approaches to their meetings, while others have taken a very focused approach such as implementing and evaluating scaffolding in the classroom, development of learning-centered syllabi, documenting reflective teaching practices, employing new (or more) assessment techniques, and integrating case-based teaching in a course.
  • Visit teaching partners’ classrooms. Junior partners visit senior partners’ classrooms in the fall semester. Senior partners visit junior partners’ classrooms in the spring semester. For resources, view CELT’s Peer Observation of Teaching Best Practices webpage.
  • Attend a CELT programming event each semester with your teaching partner, view CELT’s Event and Registration webpage.
  • Attend three one-hour CELT Teaching Partner Program gatherings (August, December, April, dates TBD)

With your teaching partner, identify one element of your teaching for documentation purposes for annual review or promotion purposes. Previous Teaching Partners Participants have gained from meaningfully interacting with others interested in the teaching and learning process outside of their discipline. Representative comments include:

  • “My senior partner observed my classroom teaching and wrote a letter that went into my 3rd-year review. That alone was worth the participation!”
  • “Having a knowledgeable, open sounding board for new ideas and the opportunity to share experiences with my mentor and the other participants in the program was invaluable.”
  • “The Teaching Partners program gave my small teaching appointment enhanced attention, and boosted my self-confidence in teaching. It also gave me a plethora of ideas for incorporating different techniques to make my classroom more student-centered in its orientation.”

Previous Teaching Partners Program Participants

If you’re wondering who has participated in the Teaching Partners Program, you can look at our comprehensive list of participants (PDF) from 2004-present day.

Application Process

Applications for the AY23-24 will be available at the beginning of the fall semester.

Questions?

Contact Dr. Krista Klocke, Coordinator for Instructor Development, CELT via email at klklocke@iastate.edu or celt@iastate.edu.

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