What is it?
Texas Teach-Up (TxTU), formerly Eyes on Teaching and Online Teaching Days, is the signature event of the Provost's Teaching Fellows program, and brings instructors from all colleges and schools together to celebrate and reflect upon their teaching practices. This year’s event takes place over two days in February, and includes a mix of both in-person and online courses.
What happens?
During the event, instructors are invited into the classrooms of their peers for a non-evaluative, reflective class observation. These take place during real-time, in the regular course location, and are designed to be a snapshot of a typical day in the course—not a showcase or master class. Afterwards the observers, instructor, and a facilitating “docent” gather in one of several nearby “coffee shop” locations on campus to discuss what they saw and reflect on how it intersects, aligns with, or differs from their own teaching and classrooms. Instructors can observe one course, two courses, or five, and are encouraged to check out a course outside of their discipline.
How can I participate?
All faculty, graduate instructors, and instructional staff can participate in Texas Teach-Up by observing one or more courses. Courses are available from nearly all colleges and schools at UT, and we highly encourage participants to sign up for courses outside of their home disciplines.
Observed instructors are not expected to be master teachers or have perfected their lesson plan over many iterations; the most exciting (and often most useful) TxTU courses are the ones in which the instructor is trying something new, teaching a new course, or changing something up about their teaching. Similarly, observers aren't expected to play the role of evaluator--every participant will take something different away from TxTU, whether that be reflections on their own teaching practices or tips and ideas to take back to their own courses.
What happens now? What happens next?
Each course will be assigned a Docent, who will communicate with all registered attendees shortly before the event. Throughout the process everyone (instructors, docents, and participants) will receive communications supporting them throughout the process and helping to guide their TxTU experiences.