Writing Teaching Philosophies

Each instructor must submit a teaching philosophy to the Coordinator or Department Chair this semester. Although communication has gone out about the teaching philosophy, we thought it may be a good idea to share some samples that can be useful in structuring your own response.

If you are interested in more information about composing a teaching philosophy, you may visit the Cornell University Graduate School to peruse their guidelines.

If you would like to see some samples, you may visit Yale University online samples.

Let us know if you have questions or need assistance.

D2L Reminders and Suggestions

As we have now moved into Week 7, many of you have settled into the routine of your classes. We hope that you are enjoying both your courses and students. While many of you have the ins and outs of classroom management and grading under control, you may still feel like your D2L pages could use a little work. Below, please find a little breakdown of what must be kept current and what might just be helpful to you and your students.

D2L Requirements

Content

These documents help the instructor in that they provide a record as to what is expected and what has been assigned in the course. They also help the students in that students always have access to the expectations and assignments. While some instructors like to give our paper copies of these documents, students may very well lose them within the first few days of the semester. They need to be able to access them at any point. Please make sure the following are up-to-date and visible to your students.

• Important Course Documents
• Course Syllabus
• Instructor Addendum
• Instructor Calendar/Schedule 
• Major Assignment Prompts
• Essays, portfolios, speeches, etc. 

Attendance/Grade Book

The attendance and the grade book are very important because they help the student understand where he or she is throughout the course of the semester. While we may verbally discuss a student's current standing, it's important that he or she can access those records in a timely manner. Many instructors prefer to take attendance and record grades straight into the D2L grade book, while others prefer to use an alternate grade book (like a paper grade book) and then transfer the attendance record and grades. Either method is fine; the most important part is that grades are up-to-date in the grade book and attendance register.

Also, please make sure you have a "Midterm" grade column in your grade book. You can do this just as you do to add any grade, except instead of "Numeric," select "Text." This will allow you to enter a letter grade into the D2L grade book without messing up any of the grade book calculations.

Lastly, grades should be made visible to students. You can check this by going to the "Enter Grades" page of the grade book. The "Calculated Grade" column should include a little eyeball. If there is a slash through the eyeball, that means students can't see their course averages. If you need help releasing that grade column and making it visible, your department chair or your program coordinator can help you.

Dropbox

All students are required to use the D2L Dropbox. This is part of our SACS accreditation, as we are mandated to keep copies of the students' major assignments for at least one year. Because we do not want to "squirrel away" graded copies of essays, we, as a department, utilize the Dropbox. Paper copies of major assignments are an instructor preference, but digital copies MUST be submitted to the Dropbox before an assignment is graded. 

In addition, please utilize the Turnitin feature of the Dropbox when applicable. This helps instructors ensure that students are submitting original work. If you need help understanding how to use Turnitin, please contact one of your program coordinators or Ryan.

D2L Suggestions

Newsfeed

As you can, try to utilize your D2L Newsfeed. Many instructors like to use this feature as a way to make announcements to the class, such as when you might be meeting in the computer lab or when you have a homework assignment due. At the very least, try putting your contact information in the Newsfeed so that if a student logs into the class page, he or she is not met with a blank page. An example of the Newsfeed can be found below.

D2L Trainings and Drop-in Assistance

The Center for Teaching Excellence maintains scheduled D2L trainings and drop-in hours. Please consider utilizing their services. The drop-in help is held on Mondays from 2:30 PM to 3:30 PM in ST-236. Appointments for other times can also be made by contacting Ginger Dewey (gdewey@yorketch.edu) or Denise Smith (dsmith@yorktech.edu).

A list of this year's scheduled trainings can be found here: D2L Professional Development Website

If you have any questions at all about D2L or any other aspects of your course, please contact your program coordinator or Ryan. Thank you again for all that you do. We absolutely couldn't do it without you!