Professional Development Principles & Competencies

Demonstrate basic computer proficiency.

Demonstrate working knowledge of Canvas.

Demonstrate the ability to record, accurately caption, and embed video/audio.

Demonstrate the ability to create accessible digital content.

Demonstrate working knowledge of Zoom if teaching synchronously online.

Use appropriate technical support resources independently.

View students through an asset-based lens.

Acknowledge that cultural and social identities are diverse, fluid, and intersectional.

Develop cultural humility by dedicating oneself to a lifelong process of self-reflection and self-critique about one's beliefs and cultural identities.

Demonstrate an understanding of the lived experiences of culturally diverse students.

Commit to seeing barriers that disproportionately impact student groups and make changes in your practice to achieve equity.

Acknowledge that every person learns differently.

Acknowledge that learning is a process influenced by the interdependence of emotions, cognition, and one's social environment.

Acknowledge the influence of trauma, stereotype threat, and belongingness uncertainty in the experiences of minoritized college students.

Design course to comply with web accessibility standards.

Promote student awareness and use of college support services and resources, especially those available online.

Engage in self-reflection and self-improvement to identify and address unconscious bias in course policies, instructional materials, and teaching practices.

Mitigate cultural mismatches by supporting both dependent and interdependent, as well as high-context and low-context, cultural values.

Provide multiple means of engagement (Universal Design for Learning).

Provide multiple means of representation (Universal Design for Learning).

Provide multiple means of action and expression (Universal Design for Learning).

Provide a course with consistent structure and clear navigation.

Structure online learning units around measurable learning objectives written in student-centered language.

Provide comprehensive instructions for content and assessments.

Use backward design principles to develop a course plan.

Ensure content is aligned with and sufficient to meet content outline and student learning outcomes.

Develop formative and summative assessments aligned with learning outcomes.

Create a welcoming starting point that supports students in beginning the course successfully.

Provide students with frequent and varied collaborative learning activities and tools that engage them with you (instructor), the content, and their peers.

Position diversity as an asset and center the experiences of diverse people.

Provide an ice breaker that invites students to share aspects about themselves with their peers.

Use communications and activities to draw connections among course content, students' lives, and students' futures.

Develop protocols, or instructions, to facilitate group/collaborative work online.

Create an environment of academic integrity.

Monitor student progress and participation (and attendance, if teaching synchronously).

Provide students with feedback to help them monitor and improve their learning.

Have a strong, imperfect human presence in your course.

Position yourself as a learning partner.

Ensure regular and substantive interaction with your students through a variety of methods.

After getting to know students, leverage that relationship by challenging them to meet high expectations (be a "warm demander").

Provide a syllabus that sends cues of inclusion and positions learning as a process of growth.

Ensure learning objectives include both lower and higher order thinking skills.

Implement activities that encourage deeper learning and ask students to apply critical analysis.

Implement authentic assessments to measure achievement of learning outcomes.

Courses are designed to support students with a range of technical abilities and a variety of device types.

Consider impact of course materials, including costs, on student access and success.

Ethically integrate digital content through the effective use of copyright.

When external tools are used, they are accessible, comply with student privacy regulations, and support deeper learning and critical analysis.

Display care and empathy for humans when using/asking students to interact with digital platforms.

To the extent appropriate, locate, evaluate, and adopt Open Educational Resources and/or other high quality Zero Textbook Cost course materials, such as library resources.

Implement open pedagogy.

Develop an ethical and professional digital presence.

Commit to improving one's knowledge and skills pertaining to equitable online instruction.

Share examples from one's own work to advance equitable, effective online teaching and learning (conference presentations, articles, one's own blog/website, Twitter, etc.)

Use self-assessments and course surveys that help you tailor course content and activities to your students’ needs and interests.

Use analytics and student feedback data from your online course to make changes during and after the course.