Professional Development Unit

Department of Modern Languages

MISSION

Atılım University School of Foreign Languages gives great importance to supporting its instructors’ lifelong learning and improvement by providing professional development activities.

Professional Development Unit aims to create a learning and sharing atmosphere and augment the teaching quality in the class by taking its instructors’ professional needs into consideration and improving their existing knowledge and skills.

ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT IN PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT UNIT

1- Pre-Service Orientation and Training Program

Atılım University School of Foreign Languages provides a pre-service orientation and education program for its newly employed instructors to introduce its in-house processes, share institutional expectations and increase their readiness level for the new duties.

All (full& part-time) newly employed instructors are provided mentorship support during the first year,

Within this framework, the orientation program for new instructors is as follows:

  •  Vision and Mission of Atılım University and  School of Foreign Languages
  •  Administrative matters and procedures as explained in instructors’ and students’ booklets
  •  Duties and functions of units of university
  •  Instructors’ responsibilities
  •  Lessons and their contents

2-  In- House Training Activities

For the instructors who have already been working for Atılım University for a while, a number of in-house activities are held in order to improve and refresh the existing knowledge and skills. Meanwhile information is given about the latest developments in the field to build a ‘common understanding’ in the institution. Some of these in-house training activities are as follows:

  • Workshops and Presentations: Professional Development Unit holds workshops carried out by PDU members, volunteer SFL instructors and guest speakers who are experts in their fields. Within a year, about 40 professional development workshops are carried out for the instructors to choose which ones to attend according to their own needs.

 

  • In-Class Observations: PDU members plan and make class observations for all instructors working for SFL. These class observations are pre-planned and carried out on a regular basis. Pre-meetings are held between PDU members and the instructors about the lesson to be observed. Also they arrange post meetings and they closely communicate with each other during the planning and evaluation process of the lesson.
  • Peer Observations: Thanks to these peer observations; instructors have the chance to think about their own teaching methods and approaches more systematically by observing one another’s lessons and making use of different points of view. Peer observations in our institution are made in two ways:

  1) Peer observations to be guided by PDU members

  2) Free peer observations to be chosen by the instructors themselves

   While making these peer observations, instructors choose some focus points and only fill in an observation form and use the form for reflection.

  • Self-reflection via Video Recording: Instructors record one of their own lessons and reflect on themselves by watching it. Then they share their self-feedback with a PDU member. If required, PDU supports them about the evaluation of the lesson.