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Department of Human Services - Curry School of Education

Teaching Evaluation

Some method should be developed to identify struggling teachers with the intent of helping these individuals. Suggested that within the current system chair could refer these individuals to the Teaching Resource Center (TRC).

A support system to serve new faculty was suggested. This might include not using teaching as part of faculty evaluations the first year to allow. Thus, students could focus on commenting on the instructor's teaching without concerns of how the faculty member will be evaluated.

It was also suggested that a feedback system that was not part of the eval process be established. This would allow for a more instruction focused critique.

It was suggested that student evals may not be the best method and that supplemental mechanisms such as the TRC and midterm evals should be used.

Long term evals and evals broken down by rank were also suggested.

Development of teaching

It was suggested that new faculty should receive a week teaching orientation prior to starting work. This might be coordinated with the TRC.

Suggested that some reward system should be developed as incentive.

Suggested that a faculty teaching consultation corps be developed to confidentially consult with faculty re: teaching and/or provide linkages to other faculty. It was suggested that one function of the corps might be to provide classroom observations 1-2 times per year. Faculty would have the option of selecting their observer from the corps.

It was indicated that the development program should include development of senior faculty.

A teaching resource book was suggested.

Evals from outside of the department was suggested.

TRC should be linked with department or school faculty meetings.

An effort should be made to identify faculty with teaching style specialties, e.g., discussion, powerpoint, etc. Incentives for teaching

There was discussion on how much weight should be given to teaching evaluation in the yearly evaluation with specific significance to merit increases.

It was suggested that teaching must be included to receive merit.

A 1/3/3/3% merit system was suggested.

Perceived load v. actual load was discussed.

Evaluation of supervision was discussed. General consensus was that there was no single method that could be applied to all program areas.

Since no money is available as an incentive, it was suggested that pride mechanisms should be used as incentives.

The incentive mechanism must also apply to senior faculty.

Target bonuses were suggested for good teachers. However, money is not available.

Punishing lower end faculty by withholding base pay increases was discussed as counter-productive.

It was suggested that a teaching continuing education program be developed. Faculty could choose among several options. If CEUs were not completed, faculty would lose their base pay increases.