Why a Professional Reflections Blog?

A long, long time ago, in a lifetime far, far away (grad school), I took a UBC Centre for Teaching and Academic Growth (TAG) workshop on making an electronic teaching portfolio. We learned about the value of recording our teaching activities and our learning about learning, in terms of both having a record for job applications and promotion and in taking the opportunity to reflect on our teaching, with the aim of evaluating, and hopefully improving, our work. It was a good workshop, which really got me excited about working on my own portfolio. But then, as always happens in the land of grad school, I got caught up with my research and writing and teaching and didn't end up making time to work on my portofolio beyond what I had done in the workshop. Later, as I was getting closer to finishing my degree, TAG again presented me with an opportunity to work on my portfolio, this time in the form of a contest... with prizes! The contest entailed working on, and submitting to TAG, a teaching portfolio. All the portfolios would get the benefit of feedback from people at TAG, as well as there being extra motivation to actually set some time aside to work on it. Never one to turn down the opportunity to win a prize, I met with a TAG staffer, Isabeau, to learn more about electronic teaching portfolio and started working on having something to submit for the contest. One of the things Isabeau and I discussed was the idea of attaching a reflective blog to the portfolio... for example, if you attend a workshop, you would list it in the "Workshops" section of your portfolio, and it would be linked to a posting on your blog where you reflect on what you gained from the workshop. Already being familiar with the blogging phenomenon, I thought this sounded like an excellent idea. I spend a fair amount of time working on my portfolio and set up a blog where I would put my reflective pieces. Of course... the best laid plans.... After the contest was over (and for which I did, in fact, receive a prize), I got swept up with a little thing called "my thesis defence," and didn't actually get around to putting anything into my blog. But now, here I am! I actually must thank Jackie, who is also on the verge of starting a reseach blog, who challenged me to actually get something posted. We set a deadline. We shook on it. So it's official! And this is my first (of many!) postings here on the uncreatively named bethsnow.blogspot.com.

Postscript: I wrote this up on my (not wireless enabled) Palm Pilot, in a coffee shop, with the plan to later upload it to this blog. And lo and behold, when I came here to upload it, it turns out that I had, in fact, posted here before. So this is actually post #2!