Documentation of Teaching Development Program

The Documentation of Teaching Development Program is designed to help graduate students develop and document their teaching skills in preparation for an academic career. Completion of the four program requirements leads to a letter from the Eberly Center detailing your activities that you can use in your job application package. Those who do not complete all of the requirements can still receive a transcript documenting the activities they did complete.

The four requirements are:

1. Seminars. Attending ten Eberly Center seminars for graduate students are required, at least six of which must be "core" seminars. Seminars cover a wide range of teaching and professional development topics.
2. Observations of your teaching. Two observations are required. The observation involves a pre-observation meeting to set the goals for the observation, a classroom visit, and a feedback meeting afterwards. Lecture- or discussion-based classes, guest lectures, and recitations where the TA has a significant teaching role can count toward the requirement. Participation in the microteaching seminar, followed by a review of the videotape with Eberly Center staff, may also count as one observation; however, at least one observation must be of an actual CMU course.
3. A course and syllabus design consultation. The consultation can be about an actual course you will teach or a hypothetical course you are likely to teach in your academic career. The consultation involves a draft of the syllabus (as reflecting and communicating all the decisions made in designing the course) a meeting with Eberly Center staff to get feedback on the draft, and subsequent revision(s).
4. An individualized project. The project is intentionally open-ended, so that it can be individualized according to interests and constraints. Typically, students focus on developing instructional materials of some sort, but a variety of options are possible, under the following constraints:
   • the project should be about 40 hours of work.
   • it should have some potential applicability or usefulness to others.
   • it should include a reflection on what was learned and the process.
   • it should have a faculty reader to check accuracy (only for technical projects).

   Two default project options include:

   • an annotated literature review on an educational topic.
   • a teaching portfolio (only for those who actually teach a course in their career at CMU).
   Approval of a project proposal by the Eberly Center's Associate Director for Graduate Support is required before starting the project.

Contact us to enroll in the Documentation of Teaching Development Program.