Cultivate Teaching Support with a Cohort
Join, or create, a Teaching Development Cohort for teaching support and development!
Guidelines
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Eligibility
Anyone who teaches is eligible to participate in a Teaching Development Cohort.
Cohorts may consist of all, or a blend, of full-time instructors, part-time (adjunct) instructors, and Graduate Teaching Assistants/Associates.
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Cohort Formation
An ideal size for a cohort is 3-5 instructors. More than this makes scheduling meetings challenging, and fewer does not allow for enough cross-pollination of ideas.
Cohorts can be formed in one of two ways:
- Find interested teaching colleagues that you already know and recruit them to be in your cohort. Colleagues can be all in one department or college, or can be from across campus.
- Indicate your interest to the CTE to be a member of a cohort. We will work to group you with other interested colleagues. This is very likely to be a cross-curricular group - which has definite benefits!
Request placement in a cohort or register your own cohort by September 15 in order to meet cohort agreements for the academic year.
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Cohort Agreements
Cohorts agree to:
- Meet twice per semester (fall, spring) of the academic year.
- Cohorts schedule their own meetings, based on their members' time and availability. Plan on meetings that last approximately 1 hour.
- Cohorts are encouraged to schedule these meetings well in advance, so they aren't forgotten or difficult to schedule later.
- Bring new learning to each meeting.
- Between cohort meetings, engage with at least one professional learning resource or experience that informs your teaching.
- CTE programs are an excellent option, but cohorts may also draw on readings, podcasts, conferences, disiplinary resources, or other substantive profesisonal learning opportunities.
- Remember that the CTE does its best to track your participation in all of its learning events, so participating in a CTE program will be credited toward your teaching development above your participation in this cohort.
- Optional but encouraged: Arrange and conduct at least one observation of each cohort member.
- Observations of one another provide an opportunity to receive insights, both as instructor and as observer. Cohorts are encouraged to rotate observations as possible for later cohort discussion and processing.
- Observations can be just that - informal observations. Feedback to the instructor is optional, but encouraged. Meaningful feedback not only is formative for each member, but can be uploaded as documentation into Watermark, and may count toward teaching progress for some cohort members' tenure or promotion requirements.
- See optional Peer Feedback document, below.
- Send light meeting updates to the CTE following each meeting.
- See form, below, for these entries.
- This brief documentation helps us to know that you are meeting and what topics of interest are under discussion or are top-of-mind for our instructors.
- Provide the CTE with feedback about this cohort model at the end of the academic year.
- We want to get this right. Your feedback will help us make needed adjustments to ensure future success of our Teaching Development Cohort program.
- Meet twice per semester (fall, spring) of the academic year.
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Cohort Kit
This kit includes several cohort resources as well as the reporting form button.
All resources below are for optional use and are not required.
What to Talk About
Use this Cohort Conversation Guide to assist with group discussions when you meet!Optional 4-Meeting Structure
This structure was developed in consultation with GenAI.
Download a copy of the 4-Meeting Structure here.
Meeting 1: Connect + Choose
Purpose: Get established as a cohort and identify what members want from the year.
Possible conversation prompts:
- What is going well in our teaching right now?
- What's puzzling, frustrating, or interesting us?
- What did we encounter in recent professional development that seems worth exploring further?
- Are there one or two themes that seem to connect our interests?
- What is one teaching commitment or experiment each of us wants to make before we meet again?
Leave with: Individual commitments and perhaps one or two shared areas of interest.
Be sure to complete the reporting form (button is below).
Meeting 2: Explore + Experiment
Purpose: Move from talking about teaching toward trying something.
- What have we learned from CTE programming or other resources?
- What did we try since our last meeting?
- What happened?
- What problem would someone like the group to help brainstorm?
- What might we try next?
Leave with: Another small experiment, question, or commitment.This could also be a natural meeting for the CTE consultation option.
Be sure to complete the reporting form (button is below).
Meeting 3: See + Reflect
Purpose: Look more closely at actual teaching and learning.
This could connect especially well to the observation component:
- What did we notice through observing one another?
- What did being an observer make us think about our own teaching?
- What are we noticing in our students?
- What assumptions about teaching or learning are we beginning to reconsider?
- What would we like another cohort member to notice if they observed us?
Before an observation, the instructor can ask the observer:
"Here's something I'm curious about. Would you particularly watch for _____?"
For example:
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- Who participates and who doesn't?
- How long do I actually wait after asking questions?
- What are students doing during this activity?
- Where do students appear confused?
- How much of the talking am I doing?
- How are students interacting with one another?
Afterward, have a brief cohort conversation based primarily on noticing rather than judging.
Please view these observations as reciprocal professional learning rather than evaluation.
Be sure to complete the reporting form (button is below).
Meeting 4: Reflect + Carry Forward
Purpose: Make meaning of the year's experience.
- What changed in our thinking or teaching this year?
- What did we try that we want to keep?
- What didn't work as expected?
- What did we learn from one another?
- What is a question we're leaving the year with?
- Is there anything we want to continue doing together?
Be sure to complete the reporting form (button is below).
Document meeting progress here
Please have one cohort member complete after each meeting:
Optional Observation Feedback Form
Peer Feedback Single-Point Rubric
- This rubric is based on key takeaways from our 4 Teaching Essentials workshops.
- Please note that this is considered feedback (how are you doing?) not an evaluation (is what you're doing good or bad?). Our teaching is always changing and moving forward!
- IMPORTANT: On a single-point rubric, feedback on EACH side of the rubric item should be provided
for ALL points observed. That is, the observee should expect, for each item, to learn
what they are doing well and how they can continue to develop.
- This approach keeps us from having our feelings hurt by receiving feeback about needed progress, as it is given for everything.
Support & Benefits from the CTE
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Cohort Formation Support
The CTE will help create cohorts for people who are not able to form a cohort, or who would like a cross-curricular cohort but need to be connected. -
Cohort Meeting Support
For one of the two meetings each semester, the CTE intends to support the cost of a lunch at the Dining Hall for your cohort. The CTE is currently in the process of determining the best process to make this happen, likely through the use of vouchers available from the CTE. -
Cohort Development Support
If the cohort requests it, and provides enough advance notice, a CTE representative will attend one of the 4 annual cohort meetings to partner with the group and provide consultation on a requested topic. -
Cohort Documentation
For cohorts who engage in this activity for the academic year, the CTE will issue each cohort member a letter of recognition for their initiative and level of participation in the Teaching Development Cohort program. This letter can be uploaded to Watermark as evidence of teaching professional development. -
Professional Development Credits
In addition to any time spent participating in a CTE PD event (as learning ahead of cohort meetings), cohort members will receive 1 CTE credit (indicating approximately 1 hour of learning time) for each cohort meeting they attend, documented within our CTE records and letter of recognition.
This record is sent, upon request, to ETSU employees or graduate students who participate in any CTE events for the academic year. Send requests to teaching@etsu.edu.
Register Your Cohort Find Me a Cohort