Self reflection is very important to professional growth.  It helps to identify strengths and weaknesses as an educator.  Here is a link to my ePortfolio which includes my own reflections through out my career as an online educator:  Andrea Hall’s Professional Development ePortfolio.

Below are some screenshots with explanations of my own reflections based on course surveys and student feedback:

The Spring 2015 Student Survey reports were very informative.  This semester I added questions to help me develop better weekly chat sessions/open office hours.  I learned that having the weekly chats on Mondays were good for the majority of students and having them occur at 7pm in the evening was perfect for them.  I was hesitant that it might be too late but I had the most turn out this semester than in times past with this later time.

Some students made the comment of wanting more time in the chats to ask questions and to get more details.  Upon reflection, have a 90 minute weekly chat/office hour might be something I might want to consider in the future.  Another student mentioned wanting a weekly check up phone call to keep them on track.  While this might not always be feasible, I think setting up a weekly appointment time for students who are falling behind from the beginning to call me (besides the monthly failure calls) might be something I would want to consider.

Overall, it was a great semester.  The student appreciated my feedback and my availability as a teacher.

There are several data analysis tools available for teachers to utilize when evaluating their course and their performance.  In addition to the Analytics Portal in Brightspace, there are evaluations from EvaluationKit which house the results from student and parent surveys.

I learned from this survey that students appreciated the feedback and that 100% found it very helpful.

I especially enjoyed the comment left by the student “I enjoyed my teacher, Mrs. Hall, a whole lot. She was very supportive and helped me understand a lot of things. She is a great instructor, and it’s a blessing to have a teacher that has so much care for and dedication to her students. Thank you Mrs. Hall. Also, the discussions and tasks were a lot of fun, especially since I was able to interact with my instructor and get help in areas where I’m tough around the edges.”

I plan to keep on giving instructive feedback and improve my grading turn around.