Reflect on your pedagogy in practice
By Catherine Ford, Program Director for Educational Development, Minnesota State
The semester is just about wrapped up – for most of you, finals are this week or the next. You may have already had the last class meeting and implemented a few strategies to provide closure and bring the course full circle. You may have asked your students to engage in reflection about the course essential questions or connect the course to past and future learning. Now it is your turn!
The end of the academic year is an excellent time for you to also engage in reflection with a focus on your pedagogy in practice. John Dewey is attributed with writing, “We do not learn from experience…we learn from reflecting on experience.” Let’s reflect on our teaching experiences and continue to grow our practice as a result. Take a few moments now to reflect on a particular course or the entire year as you consider the following questions.
- What was my best teaching moment this year or term? Why?
- What is one instructional strategy or pedagogical approach that I want to replicate? Why?
- What was a challenging teaching moment this year or term? Why?
- What is one area related to teaching and learning I am curious about to learn more? Why?
- What is one teaching or planning strategy I know I want to try next year? Why?
- What is one teaching or planning strategy I need to do differently? Why?
- If I chose to revise one thing, what might this be? Why?
This reflection doesn’t mean that you need to spend your spare moments this summer redesigning a course or rewriting an assessment. It is an encouragement to spend some time over the next few days or weeks reflecting and writing yourself a few notes for the fall or for when you begin to prepare for the next term. And it is worth writing down these reflections. This may be in a notebook, a comment bubble in an digital syllabus, or a series of sticky notes. It may be formal or informal – whatever approach supports your reflection.
If you are looking for opportunities to learn more about teaching and learning strategies and approaches, consider the summer NED course offerings. Do you want to learn more about Accessible Course Documents or Building Your Course Essentials in D2L? The NED has opportunities for you! If you want to wait until the fall, the NED will again have numerous short courses and webinars available beginning the end of August. The fall schedule will be released mid-July.
Mark your calendars now and register for the 2025 NED Conference September 25-26, 2025 at Minnesota State University Moorhead. This is an opportunity to gain inspiration, connect with your peers, reflect with others, and enhance your teaching and learning strategies and techniques. The conference will be both in-person and virtual and will have robust sessions led by your colleagues from across the state.
I hope you will be intentional about finding some time for reflection in the short term and have smooth endings to your spring semesters.
Create a OneNote notebook to organize your teaching reflections and notes
By Elizabeth Harsma, Program Director for Technology Integrated Learning, Minnesota State
The Pedagogy in Practice shared some helpful reflection questions to support continuous improvement in equitable and effective teaching. Microsoft OneNote is one helpful tool to organize teaching notes and reflections.
OneNote is a digital notebook that allows users to take notes, add various content like images, audio, and video, and collaborate with others on shared notebooks.
Here we will focus on individual use of OneNote including how to:
- Create a OneNote notebook
- Organize with sections and pages
- Add different types of content
Create a OneNote notebook
Create a OneNote notebook to organize your teaching reflections and notes. To create a notebook:
- Select the OneNote app.
- Navigate to https://www.onenote.com/hrd
- Sign in with your StarID credentials.
- In the top left corner, select the Microsoft 365 app launcher waffle icon.
- In the search field enter OneNote.
- Under the Create New header, select Blank notebook.
- Enter a notebook title, select the Create button.
Organize with sections and pages
You can organize your notebook into multiple sections. Within each section you can create pages. You can add content to each page.
Create a section:
- Select the + Add Section link.
- Enter a Section name. (Example: Spring 2025 SPAN 101-03)
- Select the Ok button.
Create a page:
- Select the + Add page link
- At the top of the new page, enter a page name. (Example: Class Notes: May 6 2025)
Add different types of content
Text: Select anywhere on the page to add a textbox and type notes.
- Copy/Paste: You can also use Crtl + C and Crtl + V (Windows) or Cmd + C and Cmd + V (Mac) key board commands to copy and paste text.
- Format: Use the Home tab to apply Header styles, bulleted or numbered lists, and more
Images: Select the location on the page you’d like an image. Select the Insert tab, then select Picture. Follow the prompts to upload an image.
- Copy/Paste: You can also use Crtl + C and Crtl + V (Windows) or Cmd + C and Cmd + V (Mac) key board commands to copy and paste images.
- Alt Text: Right click to open the image edit menu, then select Alt Text… to add alternative text to the image. You can also use Shft + F10 (Windows) or Crtl + 5 (Mac) to open the image actions menu.
Tags: Add tags to your notes to create checklists, flag items as important, note a question or idea and more.
- Place your cursor on the same line or highlight the item you would like to add a tag to.
- Select the Home tab, then select the Tags menu. Select a tag.
Even more OneNote features to explore:
- Links: Insert video or audio links by highlighting the descriptive text you’d like to add a link to and select Ctrl + K (Windows) or Cmd + K (Mac). Or you can select the Insert tab and select Links.
- Draw: Select the Draw tab and use a stylus or digital pen, your mouse, or finger to handwrite, draw, diagram, etc.
- Math Assistant: Write math equations and convert it to a digital note on the page.
- View: Select the View tab to use the Immersive Reader to listen back to your notes and customize how you view the page.
- And more!
Get started with Microsoft OneNote.
Use bookmarks or a table of contents on lengthy documents
By using bookmarks or a table of contents (TOC) in documents over nine (9) pages, you make it easier for users to locate content in long documents. Learn more about this digital accessibility tip.
View more digital accessibility tips.
NED Year in Review
By Megan Babel, Communications Coordinator, Minnesota State
The numbers are in! Listed below are a few of the Network for Educational Development’s accomplishments for the 2024-2025 academic year. This year also marks the 10,000th registration since tracking began in 2021.
NED statistics from May 2024 – May 2025:
- 104 webinars
- 45 short courses
- 5 faculty learning communities
- 994 NED Members
- 4 communities of practice
- 2,739 faculty and staff participated with an average of 2.32 registrations per person
- Representation of faculty from 100% of Minnesota State campuses
The NED is thankful to all Minnesota State faculty and staff who helped to develop, facilitate, promote, and participated in the NED events offered this year. We are excited for what the next year has in store and encourage you to continue to grow with your Minnesota State community personally and professionally.
The theme of Promoting Equity through Data Practices continues! The new Summer 2025 Short Courses and Faculty Learning Communities are open for registration now! Check back often as webinars will continue to be added throughout the term. Receive a weekly Upcoming Events email by becoming a member of the NED Resource Site.
Email the Network for Educational Development
View past editions of the Educational Development Digest.
Visit the NED Events Calendar to view upcoming educational development opportunities. Visit the NED Resource Site for recordings of previous webinars and additional resources.
