Concerns About CIS Instructors

Concerns About CIS Instructors

Concerns about a CIS instructor’s attendance at professional development workshops, adherence to course content and assessments, and/or other instructional issues will be addressed on a case-by-case basis.

Professional development workshop attendance

CIS tracks instructor attendance at each cohort’s professional development workshops. Instructors are required to attend all professional development workshops in the years in which  they are teaching the course, and are strongly encouraged to attend professional development workshops in years when they aren’t teaching a course. In some cohorts, attendance is required, even in years when an instructor isn’t teaching the UMN course. 

If an instructor develops a pattern of absences from professional development workshops over a two year period, the faculty coordinator and CIS staff will discuss the matter with the instructor and, if necessary, include the school principal. If the attendance pattern does not change in the third year, CIS may determine that it can no longer allow the instructor to teach the UMN course.

Course content and academic quality

If a faculty coordinator has concerns about an instructor’s adherence to course content or academic quality, they are asked to document their concerns in the faculty site visit report and discuss the concerns with the instructor in a follow up meeting.

If the concerns can be corrected, the faculty coordinator and CIS program staff will identify the changes they want to see implemented and a timeline for these changes. Where appropriate, CIS and the faculty coordinator may offer the instructor additional coaching or mentoring. A follow-up site visit will be conducted to determine if the concerns have been corrected.

If the concerns can not be resolved, or the concerns are not corrected within the given timeline, CIS program staff and the faculty coordinator will contact the instructor and their school principal to inform them of the concerns and set a timeline to discontinue the instructor’s approval to offer the course.

For other instructional issues, corrective measures will be implemented on a case-by-case basis.