Ten Steps to Success

The Ten Steps to Success program is designed to provide a foundation for the career-long process of developing one’s expertise as a teacher. Students change, content changes, and new strategies and ideas for how to best support student learning are constantly emerging. In addition, over the course of a teaching career, we often need to try something new, just to keep things interesting.

Ten Steps to Success is a voluntary program for full-time faculty prior to promotion, comprised of two components.

1. Ten teaching-related development experiences (only one per semester for most full-time faculty)
2. One-two page teaching reflection/philosophy and statement of future plans

Teaching Experiences

Four of the experiences, intended to provide a well-rounded basis for teaching development, are “required”.

Experience 1: Course Design workshop or institute

This engages participants in using a “backwards” course design process to plan a new course or redesign an old one. The focus is on engaging students in significant learning experiences. [offered each January as a workshop and in May as a weeklong institute].

Experience 2: Digital Fluency Workshop

At UMSL we define digital fluency as “an evolving aptitude that empowers the individual to effectively and ethically interpret information, discover meaning, design content, construct knowledge, and communicate ideas in a digitally-connected world.” In order to enhance your own digital fluency, choose one of the workshops offered through the CTL [primarily offered at the FTTC in the fall and the Spring Forum]

Experience 3: Introduction to Service-Learning workshop

USML aspires to be nationally recognized for its Service-Learning Program. Service-Learning involves the design of courses to include a student service experience connected in an explicit way to the course content and learning outcomes. This workshop describes course models, sample syllabi, mini-grants, logistical support, best practices, and consultation services. [offered early each fall semester].

Experience 4: Classroom observation or Mid-semester Feedback

The route to excellent teaching is highly individualized. For this reason, the Ten Steps to Success program recommends that you take advantage of one of the following customized and confidential opportunities to reflect on your teaching.

Classroom observation: A CTL consultant can observe your teaching in any instructional environment. After the visit, the consultant will discuss with the instructor what was observed; together, they develop strategies for further experimentation and refinement, and identify areas for ongoing reflection.

Experiences 5-10

The balance of the teaching experiences is left to your discretion so you can choose events and opportunities that are most relevant to your teaching at this time in your career. They are generally chosen from the following events, but could also involve reading a book or creating a literature bibliography on a particular aspect of teaching and learning:

CTL Workshops

It is recommended that one choose topics spread across a wide range of areas. A list of the workshop opportunities for the current semester can be found at umsl.edu/services/ctl

Off-campus conference or workshop

Off-campus workshops or conferences focused on teaching. It may be general or disciplinary-based. The experience may be a conference session that is a larger part of a scholarly meeting.

University of Missouri Faculty Scholars

Participation in the UMFS program, a year-long program designed to promote scholarly teaching practice and stimulate dialogue, reflection, and innovation in teaching “counts” toward five of the ten experiences.

Teaching Reflection and Plans for the Future

Reflection is an important part of one’s development as a teacher. Thus, after completion of the ten experiences, you are invited to prepare a 1-2 page written reflection on your development as a teacher and a statement of plans for your ongoing development as a teacher. Your statement should include some narrative about how experiences in the program have contributed to your teaching perspectives and practice. It can also take the form of a teaching philosophy. Suggestions for structuring a teaching philosophy statement can be found on the CTL website and CTL staff are happy to consult about crafting your statement.

Enrollment and Program Completion

Enrollment serves to register your interest in completing the program and allows the CTL to provide you with ongoing support as you complete the program. One may enroll at any point in time during the pre-promotion years (and experiences completed before enrollment can serve toward completion of the program). 

Enroll

After meeting the requirements of Ten Steps to Success, please fill out the completion form. The form prompts you to provide a list of your ten experiences and your teaching reflection and plans statement. This documentation is forwarded to the Provost so that she can sign the certificate of completion for inclusion in your tenure and promotion dossier.

Questions? Visit the CTL website for more information or contact Andy Goodman.