New and Early Career Instructor Teaching Community : New Instructors : Teaching Center : University of Rochester

New and Early Career Instructor Teaching Community

The New and Early Career Instructor (NECI) teaching community brings together instructors from across the University of Rochester and accelerates their success in teaching by helping them identify and define effective teaching in their instructional context, learn evidence-based teaching practices aligned with that definition, and create an action plan for demonstrating and documenting their teaching effectiveness. Participants engage in both collaborative and individual activities, and reciprocal peer feedback to provide each other with encouragement and suggestions, along with ongoing support from Teaching Center staff.

The program is open to instructors who:

are in their first three years of teaching at the University of Rochester
are on a multi-year contract (e.g., tenure track, instructional track, clinical track, lecturer, two-year visiting assistant professor, etc.)
teach courses that enroll students at the University of Rochester

This program is structured to take place over the course of one academic year, with six, 90 minute in-person sessions in both the fall and spring semesters. The time commitment is approximately 10–12 hours per semester, inclusive of meeting time. The Teaching Center will determine meeting times each semester based upon participants’ schedules.

Fall Semester

During the fall semester, participants learn and implement evidence-based teaching practices and define effective teaching in their instructional context using information from four lenses (department, school, university, and discipline). These sessions help participants:

create a definition of effective teaching in their instructional context
determine acceptable evidence of effective teaching in their instructional context
map evidence-based teaching practices aligned with that definition that can be used to demonstrate and document their teaching effectiveness
become intentional about the design of learning experiences
think critically about their instructional choices and practices

Spring Semester

During the spring semester, participants continue to learn and implement evidence-based teaching practices and develop a plan for collecting evidence of effective teaching from multiple data streams (student, peer and self voice). These sessions help participants:

create a three-year plan for documenting their teaching effectiveness aligned with their definition
plan (and implement) an evidence-based teaching practices aligned with their definition of effective teaching
collect holistic evidence documenting their teaching effectiveness
set instructional goals and collect data to evaluate achievement of that goal

By the end of this program, participants will be able to:

implement evidence-based teaching practices in their teaching
define effective teaching for their instructional context using the essential criteria of effective teaching from their department/program, school, university, and academic discipline
identify personal definition of effective teaching and areas of overlap/divergence with the definition of effective teaching for their context
document their teaching effectiveness using multiple strands of data, including evidence from their students, peers, and self
reflect on their teaching for iterative improvement
identify the next steps in their teaching journey using TC programs and/or services

Additional Support

In addition to the NECI teaching community, the Teaching Center offers a variety of programming, including workshops, consultations, cohorts, mid-semester observations, grants, and more. If you are not eligible for this community, please join us in our other programming.