♫12 Days of Professional Development Opportunities♫ – Faculty Focus

On the first day of professional development, my provost said to me: “Please freshen up your pedagogy.”
Catchy? Maybe. Necessary? Absolutely.

Between shifting student expectations, new learning technologies, and a constant stream of assessment data,
faculty life can feel like a never-ending game of academic whack-a-mole. That’s exactly why thoughtful,
well-designed professional development isn’t just “nice to have” anymoreit’s central to student success and
faculty well-being in higher education.

Inspired by the festive “12 days” theme and the spirit of Faculty Focus–style teaching advice, this guide walks
through 12 practical professional development opportunities you can spread across a break, a
semester, or an entire academic year. Each “day” is a focused, realistic way to grow as an educator without
requiring a sabbatical, a second brain, or a grant the size of a small country’s GDP.

Reframing Faculty Development for a New Academic Era

Research on professional development across K–12 and higher education points in the same direction: the most
effective learning experiences for educators are sustained, collaborative, practical, and evidence-based.
They focus on real classrooms, real students, and real problems of practicenot just theory or inspirational
keynotes.

For colleges and universities, this often means:

• Leveraging teaching and learning centers for ongoing support rather than one-off workshops.
• Building communities of practice where faculty experiment with new strategies and report back.
• Connecting professional development to concrete student learning outcomes and equity goals.
• Using datacourse analytics, student feedback, and assessmentto guide decisions instead of guesswork.

The good news: you don’t need to overhaul your entire teaching identity overnight. A sequence of small,
intentional steps (say, 12 of them) can add up to a meaningful shift in how you teach, support, and mentor
your students.

The 12 Days of Professional Development Opportunities

Day 1: Coffee with Your Teaching & Learning Center

Start simple: schedule an informal consultation with your campus teaching & learning center (CTL) or
faculty development office. Bring one course, one challenge, and one goal.

Ask questions like:

• “Where do students typically get stuck in courses like mine?”
• “What are three evidence-based strategies I could try this term?”
• “Is there a campus resource I’m overlooking?”

In under an hour, you can walk away with a shortlist of targeted ideas, a human contact who knows your context,
and perhaps an invitation to future workshops or faculty learning communities.

Day 2: A Micro-Course on Inclusive Teaching

Inclusive teaching isn’t a buzzwordit’s a core professional competency. Dedicate a day (or a couple of hours)
to an online module or micro-course focused on inclusive course design, equitable assessment, or supporting
diverse learners.

Look for opportunities that:

• Offer concrete strategies (e.g., transparent assignment design, universal design for learning).
• Include examples from your discipline or level (undergraduate, graduate, community college, etc.).
• Build in reflection prompts so you can adapt ideas to your own classroom.

The goal isn’t to become an expert in one day, but to upgrade your awareness and choose one inclusive practice to implement immediately.

Day 3: Syllabus Spring Cleaning

Professional development doesn’t always mean attending a session; sometimes it means
revisiting your own materials with a more expert eye. Choose a single syllabus and ask:

• Is my learning outcomes language clear, measurable, and student-friendly?
• Do assignments clearly connect to the skills and outcomes I say I value?
• Is my tone supportive and inviting, or does it read like a legal contract?

Use ideas from recent pedagogical articles or workshops you’ve attended. Even changing the way you explain
participation, late work, or office hours can significantly shift students’ sense of belonging.

Day 4: Peer ObservationWithout the Anxiety

Invite a trusted colleague to observe a class sessionor offer to observe theirswith a clearly defined focus.
Instead of “Please tell me if I’m terrible,” try:

• “Can you watch how students respond during my small group activities?”
• “Do I give enough wait time after asking questions?”
• “Are my instructions for in-class tasks clear?”

Follow up with a short debrief over coffee. The point is not evaluation but professional dialogue:
two educators thinking together about how students learn.

Day 5: A Mini Deep Dive into Assessment

Use one day to focus on a single assessment issue. Maybe your students bomb the midterm, or discussion posts feel
like they’re written by AI-powered zombies. Choose one of these and:

1. Pull recent student work samples and look for patterns.
2. Revisit your rubric or grading criteriaare they aligned with your goals?
3. Search for assessment strategies in your discipline (exam wrappers, project-based assessment, low-stakes quizzes).

Professional development is far more powerful when it’s anchored to specific data from your own courses.

Day 6: Tech Tune-Up Day

Dedicate a day to getting more value out of tools you already have: your LMS, polling software, annotation
tools, or video platforms. Instead of adding more apps, ask:

• Can I automate assignment reminders or feedback releases?
• Would quick polls help me check understanding in large lectures?
• Could short video announcements or micro-lectures make my course more human?

A short tutorial or workshop on a single platform can pay off all semester in saved time and improved engagement.

Day 7: Join (or Start) a Faculty Learning Community

Faculty learning communities (FLCs) turn professional development from a solo sport into a team event.
Look for existing groups on your campus focused on active learning, first-year success, or online teaching.
If there isn’t one, consider starting a small, informal group that meets monthly to:

• Share one teaching win and one challenge.
• Discuss a short article or teaching case study.
• Co-create small experiments to test in your classes and report back on.

The accountability and shared creativity of an FLC can be more powerful than any single half-day workshop.

Day 8: Student Voice Day

Students are unintentionally your most underutilized professional development resource. Use a day to gather
structured feedback that goes beyond standard course evaluations.

Try:

• A “Stop–Start–Continue” survey midway through the term.
• Short reflection prompts asking, “What’s helping you learn?” and “What’s getting in the way?”
• A focus group with volunteer students from across your courses.

Then, pick one change you’re willing to make immediatelyand tell students what you’re adjusting and why.
This models a growth mindset and signals that you take their learning seriously.

Day 9: Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Starter Day

If you’ve ever thought, “I wonder if this new strategy is actually working,” you’re already halfway to SoTL.
Use a day to:

• Identify a teaching question (e.g., “Does weekly low-stakes quizzing improve exam performance?”).
• Skim a few SoTL articles in your discipline or from teaching journals.
• Sketch a simple before-and-after or comparison design using existing course data.

Even if you never formally publish, approaching your teaching as a site of inquiry sharpens your professional judgment.

Day 10: Mentoring & Career Development Check-In

Professional development isn’t just about teaching techniques; it also includes mentorship, leadership skills,
and long-term career planning. Spend a day reflecting on questions like:

• Who are my professional mentorsand do I need new ones for this stage of my career?
• How does my teaching development align with promotion, tenure, or new leadership roles?
• Are there external programs or networks (e.g., writing accountability groups, leadership academies) I should join?

Many faculty development programs now intentionally integrate mentoring, time management, and work–life
balance, recognizing that burned-out faculty don’t teach at their best.

Day 11: Designing One Signature Learning Experience

Choose a single class session, project, or unit you’d love students to remember five years from now. Then use
your professional development time to redesign it as a “signature learning experience.”

Consider:

• A real-world case or client-based project.
• Community engagement or interdisciplinary collaboration.
• Structured reflection activities where students connect course content to their goals or identities.

Even if the rest of your course remains unchanged for now, one powerful experience can transform how students
talk about and engage with your subject.

Day 12: Reflection, Documentation, and Celebration

On the twelfth day of PD, resist the urge to start all over again. Instead:

1. List the new strategies you tried and the patterns you noticed in student learning.
2. Document your efforts in a brief teaching portfolio entry, CV update, or annual report notes.
3. Identify two or three priorities for your next cycle of development.

Professional development that isn’t documented tends to vanish into your memory’s recycling bin.
A short, honest reflection can turn “I went to some workshops” into clear evidence of growth.

Making Your 12-Day Plan Actually Happen

A beautiful plan is useless if it never leaves your downloads folder. To turn your “12 days” into more than a
seasonal fantasy, try these implementation moves:

• Timebox each day. Decide whether a “day” means a full day, a half-day, or three 90-minute sprints.
• Align with institutional priorities. Frame your goals in the language your institution values: student success, retention, equity, and innovation.
• Partner up. Invite a colleague to adopt the 12-day approach with you and check in periodically.
• Share outcomes. Present a short “12 Days of PD” update at a department meeting or retreat.
• Advocate for support. Use your experience to recommend stipends, course releases, or formal recognition for time spent on teaching development.

When faculty development is treated as a shared, strategic investment rather than an individual hobby, everyone benefits:
faculty, students, and the institution as a whole.

Real-World Experiences: How 12 Days of PD Can Change a Semester

To see how this might play out beyond a tidy list, imagine three instructors at different stages of their careers
who adopt a “12 days” mindsetspreading their development across a semester rather than cramming it into one
exhausted week in August.

Maya, the mid-career biologist. Maya has taught the same introductory course for years. Her
students like her, but exam scores plateau and she’s tired of grading the same lab reports. She starts with:

• A CTL consultation to unpack where students struggle in the course.
• A micro-course on active learning in STEM.
• A single redesigned lab assignment framed as a real-world problem rather than a cookbook procedure.

Over one semester, Maya notices more students participating in class, especially those who previously sat quietly
in the back. The data isn’t perfect, but there’s a small uptick in exam performance and a big increase in students’
written reflections on how the course connects to their future plans. Her annual report now includes concrete
evidence of innovation and impact.

Jordan, the new lecturer. Jordan is teaching a full load while learning the LMS, figuring out
office politics, and trying to remember which building is which. A full-scale course redesign is not happening.
Instead, Jordan:

• Joins a faculty learning community for early-career instructors.
• Uses one PD day to create clearer rubrics and grading guides.
• Implements a mid-semester feedback survey and responds publicly to the results.

By the end of the year, Jordan has a small but meaningful archive of teaching materials, reflection notes, and
student feedback. When promotion or contract renewal comes up, there’s a visible trajectory of growth rather than
a pile of unrelated tasks.

Sam, the seasoned humanities professor. Sam has a strong scholarly reputation but tends to avoid
teaching workshops, assuming they’re aimed at newer faculty. When the institution rolls out new equity and
inclusion goals, Sam decides to:

• Attend a focused session on inclusive discussion facilitation.
• Revise participation guidelines to value multiple forms of engagement, not just speaking in class.
• Collaborate with a colleague to observe each other’s seminars with attention to whose voices are heard.

Sam discovers that small shiftsstructured pair-sharing before whole-class discussion, rotating roles, and more
explicit normscreate space for students who previously stayed silent. Course evaluations begin to note that the
classroom feels more welcoming and intellectually vibrant.

Across all of these examples, a few themes emerge:

• Professional development is iterative, not all-or-nothing. Each instructor chose a few high-leverage moves rather than trying to fix everything at once.
• Context matters. The most effective PD built on each instructor’s discipline, teaching load, and career stage.
• Structures help. Consultations, communities, and formal programs gave each instructor accountability and support.
• Student impact is the north star. The “win” wasn’t attending a workshop; it was seeing students engage more deeply and succeed more fully.

That’s the real promise behind a “12 Days of Professional Development” approach. It’s not a gimmick; it’s a way
to chunk your growth into manageable, meaningful steps that fit into the real life of a busy faculty
member. Whether you’re teaching online, hybrid, or face-to-face, you can choose a starting point, commit to a
sequence of small actions, and look back at the end of the year and say: “I’m not the same teacher I was before
and my students aren’t learning in the same way either.”

So cue up your favorite playlist, grab your calendar, and plan your own 12 days. Future you (and your students)
will be grateful.