Description of Selected Professional Experience

Faculty Guiding Questions

U of M faculty have developed guiding questions for College in the Schools instructor applicants in many of the categories of Applicable Professional Experience. If you are applying experience to meet minimum instructor qualifications, please respond to the relevant questions as part of your Description of Selected Professional Experience. Examples, which can be found in a companion page, will help you understand the amount of detail and reflection that U of M faculty expect.

1) Discipline-specific professional development

• Describe the workshops, seminars, etc. Where did they take place? When did they take place? What was the duration (in hours)? What was the sponsoring group or organization?
• How is it relevant to the topics covered in the course or to related topics in the same field?
• How did it affect or change your understanding of the field?
• How was it applied? Did it affect anything in your classroom? What were the results, outcomes, or impacts?

If you are describing a group of similar workshops or conferences (for example, AP workshops attended for 3 years) you will need to provide details such as duration (in hours), date, location, and sponsoring organization for each workshop, but your discussion of the relevancy and impact might be for the group of related workshops.

Example: Discipline-specific professional development

2) Curriculum development

• What was the scope of the curriculum—a unit? a course?
• What grade level and what audience was it developed for?
• What was your role? Did you lead a group? Work alone? Work collaboratively with peers?
• What were the objectives or guiding principles of the curriculum? What was animating the unit or course overall?
• What was the process/criteria for selecting the core texts of the curriculum? What textbooks or other materials were reviewed?
• How were professional standards represented in the curriculum?
• Did you include recent research, ideas about how the field is changing, or trends in the field?
• How was the curriculum evaluated?
• How has the curriculum changed or evolved since it was implemented?
• How successful was the implementation? What were the results, outcomes, or impacts?

Example: Curriculum development

3) Teaching of a course leading to undergraduate credit for students

• What was the course title and number of credits? When, where, and how many times did you teach it?
• What type of course was it—concurrent enrollment, PSEO, AP, IB, or college/university course taught on a college campus or online for a college or university? What were your responsibilities? Did you develop the curriculum, create the assessments, lead discussions or labs (for example, as a TA)?
• As you were teaching the course did you change anything based on what you noticed about how students learned a particular concept or concepts? For example, what concepts seemed the most difficult for students to understand and what strategies did you use for teaching these?
• What were the results, outcomes, or impacts? For example, what did student evaluations of the course, or AP scores, reveal about your ability to teach and communicate in the field.
• Did you make use of an innovative pedagogy or use technology in an innovative way in teaching the course?

Example: Teaching of a course leading to undergraduate credit for students

4) Discipline-specific leadership role

• Describe the role and the scope of your responsibilities. How long did you hold this position?
• In what ways does this role reflect your understanding of the discipline you are applying to teach?
• In what ways did your knowledge in the field, or in related fields, affect your leadership in this role?

Example: Discipline-specific leadership role

5) Presentations

• What was the sponsoring group or organization, date, location, audience, and length of your presentation? What was the format of the presentation (roundtable discussion, panel presentation, individual presentation followed by Q and A, etc.)? Include the names and titles of any others who made the presentation with you.
• If possible, provide a copy of the conference schedule or workshop agenda showing your participation.
• Provide an abstract or summary of the presentation.
• Were you selected to give the presentation through a competitive process?
• What was the significance of the presentation? Was it based on your own, original research, program development, or curriculum?
• Was the presentation evaluated? If so, what were the results?

Example: Presentations

6) Discipline-specific community of practice

Examples of this might be a study group that you organized or participated in, an action research project on which you collaborated, or a group of students that you coached in an academic pursuit related to the field or the course you are applying to teach.

• What was the purpose of organizing or participating in this community or group? Were you exploring a particular concept or idea in the discipline, understanding current research in the field, grade-norming, exploring best practices, sharing skills?
• How long and how often did you participate? How was the community organized? For example, did you meet in person or have online discussions? How many people participated?
• What was your approach to the work? What kinds of research or reading did you do?
• What were the results, outcomes, or impact? Did your work contribute to the success of the students or school? Did it lead to changes in what you taught or the way you taught it? Did it lead to additional questions or areas you want to explore?
• Did you or your students receive recognition as the result of, or for, this work?
• Did you use technology in an innovative way? For example, to facilitate discussion, or make presentations?

Example: Discipline-specific community of practice

7) Student teacher supervisor

• How many student teachers have you supervised, and for how long?
• What postsecondary institution sponsored the student teacher(s)?
• Why were you selected for this role?
• What model was used to develop the skills and understandings of the student teacher? For example, was there collaboration/was it a co-teaching model?
• What did you discuss or address with the student teacher? For example, did you discuss assessing student performance, lesson planning, becoming a reflective teacher and assessing your own performance as a teacher?
• What materials did you review? Teaching video, lesson plans, class materials, a syllabus, etc.
• In what ways does your experience as a student teacher connect to the topics covered in the U of M course or related topics in the same field? For example, did you and the student teacher discuss common conceptual stumbling blocks for students or assessment issues specific to the course? If so, what concepts or assessment issues did you discuss and how did you work with the student teacher(s) to address these?

Example: Student teacher supervisor

8) Receiving an award or other recognition

• What was the award, when did you receive it, and who was the sponsoring organization or group?
• What was the significance of the award? Describe the connection to the field—for example, was the award an acknowledgement of excellence in teaching in the field?
• Were you selected for the award through a competitive process? What criteria were used for making the selection?

Example: Receiving an award or other recognition

9) Experience requiring regular use of skills or content knowledge related to the field

This could be volunteer or paid work experiences, for example, leading a study abroad trip requiring you to use a foreign language that you teach, or grading hundreds of student essays over your years as a writing teacher, or operating a successful farm or CSA.

• What was your role?
• What skills or knowledge of the field did you use?
• How often, and how long, did the experience require you to use skills or knowledge related to the field?
• What were the outcomes, impacts, or results? Did this result in successes for an organization, students, yourself?

Example: Experience requiring regular use of skills or content knowledge related to the field

10) Participation in a nationally normed assessment activity related to the field

• What was the activity? Describe it. When did you participate, and for how long?
• How were you selected for this position?
• What kind of training did you receive?
• What did you learn about the field or teaching in the field from the experience?
• Did this experience change anything about the way you work with students?

Example: Participation in a nationally normed assessment activity related to the field

11) National Board Certification

• What is the board and what is the significance of this certification?
• What is the process for selecting teachers for this certification?
• How does this certification demonstrate your knowledge of topics covered the U of M course, or of related topics from the same field?

Example: National Board Certification

12) Field test, review or edit curriculum for publisher

• What was the title of curriculum? Who was the publisher?
• When and where did you do this work? Did you work alone or with others?
• What was your role? What was the scope of your work? Did you test, review, or edit a lesson? A unit? an entire curriculum? How much time did you spend on this?
• What criteria did you use to evaluate or test the curriculum?
• What did you learn from this experience, particularly as it applies to the U of M course?

13) Serve on textbook selection committee for secondary or postsecondary institution

• When and where did you do this work? For what organization? Did you work alone or with others?
• What was your role? What was the scope of your work? How much time did you spend on this?
• What criteria did you use to select the textbook? How many different texts did you review before selecting one? Why did you select the one you chose?
• What did you learn from this experience, particularly as it applies to the U of M course?

14) Demonstrated community engagement

• Describe the projects or work you’ve done in the community? When and where did you do this work? For what organization? Did you work alone or with others?
• What was your role? What was the scope of your work? How much time did you spend on this?
• What issues or problems were you addressing in your work?
• What were the outcomes and what did you learn from this experience, particularly as it applies to the U of M course?