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Discipline-Specific Professional Development Workshops

CIS instructors attend and participate in required ongoing professional development through workshops, webinars, and other events that offer discipline-specific, academic and instructional development and keep one abreast of department and course developments and new trends in the field.  Typically cohorts meet for workshops three-five days annually.  Leadership opportunities in a cohort may include presenting best practices from your classroom, facilitating a group discussion on a particular topic, participating on a course advisory committee, and other activities.

Your involvement in faculty-led and cohort professional development is the primary means by which faculty coordinators understand your course, engagement and development in the field, and the University of Minnesota ensures University quality in the courses taught by high school instructors.  This regular and frequent contact with University faculty, in addition to faculty site visits, ensures that the content, pedagogy, and student assessment of the University course is the same in the high school and on campus. 

Additionally, the essential role professional development plays in creating vigorous concurrent enrollment programs is acknowledged by the National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships (NACEP)—providing regular discipline-specific workshops, and ensuring instructor participation, are requirements for NACEP accreditation. 

Following each professional development workshop, CIS sends a letter documenting instructor participation, which can then be used to meet continuing education requirements. 

Your school has agreed in the signed MOA to provide a substitute for you to make arrangements to and participate in all CIS professional development events.  During the summer, CIS strongly encourages school administration to also support CIS instructors time and expenses with professional development or other funding.  If an emergency prevents you from attending a professional development workshop, contact your faculty coordinator to explain your absence and to learn what, if anything, you can do to access the information and activities you missed.

If a CIS instructor is inactive for two or more years, additional professional development may be required by the department before teaching the UMN course again. 

Instructors are encouraged to share their expertise, assist faculty coordinators with  their cohorts’ professional development workshop planning to meet cohort needs, and contribute to the scholarly community. 

Summer Workshops and Attendance (New and All Instructors)

Instructors new to CIS participate in additional, required course-specific workshops and an instructor orientation prior to teaching in the following fall or spring terms (typically two-five days). 

All instructors meet for the required summer professional development workshop (one-three days).  Bring your school calendar to your summer workshops to help select professional development and field day dates for the coming year that will allow your students to participate. Be aware of Advanced Placement test dates, other testing dates, and “blackout” dates for your school or district.

Fall, Spring and Summer Workshops and Attendance (All Instructors)

All instructors meet for the required academic year professional development workshops.  Each faculty coordinator decides for his or her cohort whether instructors offering the UMN course every other year or on an irregular schedule must attend professional development workshops during academic years when the course is not taught. Check the course page on the CIS website to see if this is true of your cohort(s). 

Instructor Attendance at Professional Development Activities (Policy) 

Active CIS instructors are required to participate in all UMN-sponsored professional development for their cohort (fall, spring and summer terms), including the summer prior to each academic year in which they will be teaching a UMN course. 

Instructors are always strongly encouraged to attend CIS professional education events, even during years they are not teaching the UMN course.  In some cohorts, attendance is required at CIS professional development workshops during their non-teaching years. These cohorts are noted on the CIS website. Instructors are strongly encouraged to participate in professional development in non-teaching years even when not required by the cohort. 

CIS tracks instructor attendance. If instructors develop a pattern of absences over a two-year period, the faculty coordinator and CIS staff will discuss the matter with the instructor and with the principal of the school. If the attendance pattern does not change in the third year, CIS may determine that it can no longer offer the University of Minnesota course at that high school.

Attendance During Non-Teaching Years

To see which cohorts require attendance during years when the instructor is not teaching a UMN course, check the course page on the CIS website.

Faculty Site Visits 

Regular faculty site visits are made to observe CIS instructors teaching the UMN course in their classrooms, host a conversation about the class, and document the visit.  These visits ensure, among other things, the teaching and learning of UMN courses taught through CIS.

The faculty site visit is a collegial opportunity to observe instructors teaching, observe student rapport and the rigor of discussion, and work individually with an instructor to ensure that pedagogy and content match that of UMN on-campus sections of the same course. The observation is also an opportunity for the instructor to ask questions, receive feedback and raise interests.  

Faculty coordinators visit instructors new to the course at least once in their first year of teaching.  Faculty coordinators or specially-appointed, discipline-specific experts continue to make regular visits of each instructor in the cohort, typically once every three years.  Faculty coordinators may also ask to observe an applicant in the classroom prior to approving the candidate to teach the UMN course. 

To maximize the value of a faculty site visit, the faculty coordinator may contact the instructor with reflective questions in advance and/or instructors may raise their own concerns and interests. Questions such as the following can help to provide context for the faculty site visit. 

• • What is your greatest pedagogical challenge in teaching this class? 

  • What are the logistical or administrative issues you are dealing with this term? 

  • Describe the dynamics of this class. Are there any classroom management issues? 

  • What else would you like the faculty coordinator to know before visiting your class? 

Plan and schedule time for the observation and a conversation with the faculty coordinator following the class.  Faculty coordinators subsequently document their observations in a summary report which is shared with the instructor and the CIS office.  CIS retains these reports for NACEP Accreditation.