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Department of Environmental Sciences -- Arts & Sciences

  1. Evaluation of Teaching

    1. Student Evaluations

      2. Evaluations are given to the instructors who hand them out to their classes in the last two weeks of each semester. The evaluation forms consists of two categories of questions: questions about lectures, textbooks, lab and field trips, papers/projects, examinations and relative time expenditure, which are primarily used to provide feedback to the individual instructor about the course; and questions about the instructor, which are used by the department in evaluation. These responses are recorded on a categorical scale. Additional space is provided for written comments.

      The data are used in preparing promotion and tenure cases and constitute a portion of the teaching profile on each faculty member. Some department chairs, at their discretion, use them in annual salary discussions with the Dean. Because the form has not been significantly altered in several decades, we have a stable sample from which the teaching evolution of an individual faculty member can be charted over time. For this reason, there is significant opposition to any substantial changes in the evaluation forms.

      Some standardization is needed, however, in the manner in which the evaluations are handed out and in the compilation and presentation of the summary evaluation data. The department's Teaching Committee is considering these issues at present.

    2. Peer Review and Teaching Portfolios.

      3. Peer review primarily takes place through the use of multiple instructors for a course. This is a very common practice within our interdisciplinary department, in which concepts from several different subject areas (geology and hydrology, for example) are integrated in a single course. A new faculty member is frequently paired with an experienced teacher who has taught that course in the past.

      There are several major advantages to this approach. First, there is immediate feedback to the instructor. Second, there is an implied component of mentoring involved. Third, the process is informal and is considered to be preferable to a top-down "Big Brother" approach. Finally, the interaction takes place over an entire semester and provides more useful data than a single-lecture "snapshot" from an observer or a videotaped lecture. Observations from these informal evaluations are incorporated into the Promotion and Tenure reports.

  2. Rewards for Teaching Excellence and Improvement

    3. Several actions should be taken to improve the climate for teaching within the department. These fall into two broad categories: support and recognition.

    Current support for teaching, particularly at the undergraduate level, relies upon ETF/HEET funds for purchase of major equipment. These funds should be augmented by a small pool of money available on an annual basis to instructors in all laboratory courses. These funds would be used for small purchases that do not fit the requirements of the ETF program but that would substantially improve the quality of teaching. Examples include maps, replacements for glassware, and chemicals. Similar amounts of money available on request for lecture courses could allow instructors to develop class demonstrations or purchase slides or videos.

    The department must be committed to recognition of teaching excellence, both within the University and the Commonwealth. A comprehensive listing of annual awards must be maintained by the chairman's office, and nominations sought from the department in a timely fashion. These awards include Alumni Council teaching awards, SCHEV Outstanding Faculty Member awards, and Virginia Scientist of the Year award. Every effort should be made to nominate faculty from the department for these awards.

  3. Report on Development of Teaching

    4. We appear to have no organized system by which to advise and guide new Assistant Professors into developing a productive teaching niche that also allows them to establish their research programs quickly and successfully. In some instances, senior faculty have voluntarily assumed the role of advisor and mentor for new Assistant Professors, but in other instances such guidance was only obtained after being sought by the Assistant Professor. While not formalized, we attempt to secure the first semester without teaching for new faculty, and to some extent to spread the development of each new faculty member's slate of courses over more than one year. Recently, we have involved new Assistant Professors in teaching the introductory courses for majors in their first year. We have no organized program to evaluate teaching by new Assistant Professors, except via the student teaching evaluations. Therefore, we have little basis to make suggestions to improve the teaching of Assistant Professors.

    Our new and nearly adopted Procedures for Promotion and Tenure suggests that we encourage junior faculty to establish a "...mentoring relationship with one or two senior faculty...". This relationship is envisioned to include the senior faculty member providing guidance on the development of a junior faculty member's teaching niche, and specific advice on teaching techniques. However, this mentoring relationship is described as "...consensual and informal...," not an obligation of the senior faculty to the junior faculty.

    We recommend:

    1) that a specific senior faculty member be identified as a mentor for each new Assistant Professor immediately upon joining the faculty; 2) that the junior faculty member, in consultation with their mentor, the Chair, and other faculty with related teaching interests, develop a 3-year plan for teaching that firmly establishes the junior faculty member's teaching niche and steers the junior faculty member away from developing more than one new course in any academic year; 3) that junior faculty be encouraged to develop as their first course a 400 or 500 level course in the specialty and that they rotate into the appropriate introductory course for majors in their second year; and 4) that an opportunity to co-teach with a senior faculty member be scheduled early in the teaching career of junior faculty.