Self-review

A self-review is important for everyone, to help them grow and develop, and take on new ideas. There are many methods you can use but any approach will be beneficial. Self-review will allow you to reflect on your teaching challenges and successes, as well as your students’ challenges and successes, and then identify areas for future improvement. Once you have highlighted these areas for improvement, the next step is to break these down into achievable action steps.

It is good practice to undertake a self-review at the end of each course delivery. Try to reflect on yourself and your teaching first and then incorporate feedback from other sources such as peer review, course evaluations, other student feedback including student reps, and teaching observations.

There are several areas about your teaching and your students that you can reflect on, including:

• The most important thing you learnt about your teaching, and about your students
• The assumptions you had about your teaching and your students that have been confirmed or challenged
• The skills that you have developed
• The knowledge that you have gained.

Once you have noted responses to these areas, you can then begin to identify strengths and weaknesses. Some questions to ask yourself include:

• How can I build more of my teaching strengths into my course design?
• How research-informed was my teaching?
• What areas of course design do I need to improve on?
• For what areas of my teaching should I seek support from others?
• What successes and accomplishments can I share with others?

You can also try using one of the following sites to help you self-review your teaching:

• Western Washington University  
• University of Pittsburgh