University Governance

Task Force on Assessment of Teaching and Learning

Guidelines for Department Implementation

High quality teaching and scholarship have long been recognized as the hallmarks of a productive faculty member. Teaching is complex intellectual work that is grounded in deep knowledge and understanding of a field, and it includes the ability to convey that understanding in clear and engaging ways. The conduct of courses is the central feature of our teaching responsibilities at KU. Our identification of teaching should not be limited to formal class performance, however, and a broader menu of teaching activities provides additional ways to demonstrate quality in teaching.

These proposed guidelines offer a framework from which faculty members can choose elements appropriate for their department, their discipline, the stage of their career, and the type of review. It is intended to increase flexibility by offering many different ways that teachers can show their work and demonstrate what they are learning from its results.

It is not expected that any individual faculty member would engage in all or even most of the activities outlined below, but they should be recognized as part of teaching when they occur across the full duration of a teaching career.

How should departments evaluate teaching?
The record of teaching should begin with a collection of materials provided by the faculty member, addressing these questions:

1. How does this teacher conduct courses?
2. How does this teacher prepare for courses?
3. What teaching work has the faculty member done in addition to teaching courses?
4. Has the faculty member made progress over time in development of teaching and/or shared teaching work with colleagues?

Appendix A, Activities That May Be Considered in the Evaluation of Teaching at KU, includes factors for evaluating each question and examples of various forms of evidence for answering each question.

It would be helpful for members of an individual unit to discuss which of these areas would be most important for that unit’s mission, so that faculty members would know the kinds of contributions that are most valued by their department colleagues.

In addition to collecting materials, the faculty member should assess her/his progress in generating effective instruction. The faculty member may highlight specific goals in teaching and comment on how the materials collected demonstrate the degree to which they have been achieved.

What about student ratings?
Students’ perceptions of teaching can identify key features of the conduct of courses, and the items used should focus on characteristics of teaching that students clearly can recognize. Students can tell accurately whether faculty members are accessible, respectful, available, clear, and timely.

Whether the unit uses the new student evaluation of teaching form or its own, it is important to recognize that no single number from students is an adequate substitute for professional judgment. Students provide a valuable perspective that can be used to inform or confirm or possibly challenge the perspective of the faculty member or peers. Ratings should be taken seriously as complementary indicators of key components in the conduct of classes, but they should not be a substitute for direct peer evaluation of the quality or success of instruction.

Open-ended student comments are most valuable as guides to instructors for their own improvement. It is University policy, however, that the use of these comments in evaluation is optional. Accordingly, they should be collected on separate pieces of paper (or online) so they can be treated independently of the required numerical ratings. When open-ended comments are used in a personnel file, they should be treated in a professional way, as described by the Task Force.

How can departments sustain the process?
A department plan should include decisions about how often each part of the process would be used. Student feedback and faculty-generated updates on innovations, development, or public presentation of teaching could easily be part of annual review, but more labor intensive processes could be intermittent at different stages of a career. For example, it is reasonable for pre-tenure faculty members to reflect annually on how effective their teaching is and on how and why their teaching practices are evolving. Between promotion to associate and promotion to full professor, that might be useful every two or three years, and perhaps for full professors or other very experienced teachers, reflection would be most useful every three to five years. Similarly, there is real benefit to having peers look closely at course materials and student learning of pre-tenure faculty members, but a more intermittent schedule of deep review would be implemented after tenure. To sustain a rich peer review of teaching, each unit will need to think through how it can allocate faculty resources wisely.