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A UNIVERSITY-WIDE CONVERSATION ABOUT TEACHING

The Academic Affairs Committee of the Faculty Senate is initiating an ambitious effort to improve teaching at the University of Virginia.

The chair of the Senate will appoint senators to organize discussions within their units about current teaching practices. After consulting with the heads of their units (whether chairs or deans, as may be appropriate), those senators will convene an existing committee on teaching or create an ad hoc committee for the purpose. That committee should evaluate its unit's procedures in light of the efforts described in the overview of teaching evaluation, development, and reward compiled by the Academic Affairs Committee and distributed at the Faculty Senate meeting on December 4. The senators assigned to each unit will write a brief summary of the discussions and send the overview to Frances T. Peyton at the Faculty Senate office no later than February 15, 1997. Her email is ftp7e@virginia.edu; her messenger mail address is The Rotunda; her fax number is 4-3792.

We will use those summaries to prepare an overview of teaching at the University. Our hope and intention is that this document, the first of its kind, will encourage faculty to think about their teaching in a more rigorous way and provide a stronger basis for chairs, deans, and the provost to offer incentives and rewards focused on teaching.

SELF-STUDY RECOMMENDATIONS AND SELECTED PRACTICES FOR THE EVALUATION AND IMPROVEMENT OF TEACHING AT U.VA.

Excellent teaching emerged as a major theme of the exhaustive self-study conducted last year at the University and we have built our summary around the recommendations of that report. The three parts of the summary begin with a quotation from the self-study report and then offer brief summaries of what is now being done in some departments to achieve those purposes. This list of selected practices is by no means complete, of course, but it does represent some of the more thoughtful current efforts.

I. Evaluation of Teaching

"Each school and department should take steps concerning the evaluation of teaching: (1) to ensure that the criteria for evaluating the quality of teaching are clearly defined, and (2) to ensure all courses are evaluated by students." (Targeting Excellence; UVa. Self-Study 1994-96, pp. 68-69)

A. Student Course Evaluations:

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

The departmental Teaching Committee designed the student course evaluation forms and evaluates the numerical scores and written comments for each faculty member. The Committee assigns a letter grade to each faculty member for each course. The Teaching Committee also encourages faculty members to supplement course evaluations with other information about the course.

The Physics Department has created different forms for lectures, discussion sections, and laboratories. The forms are used in every course and section. The most relevant form for the present purposes is the lecture course evaluation form.

Forms are distributed by the instructor near the end of the term, and time is allowed for students to fill them out. Answers to the questions receive a numerical score (not at all = 1; extremely = 5). The average scores for each of the ten questions and the written comments are evaluated by the Teaching Committee in the context of past results for a given type of course (introductory, service, upper-level majors, graduate, laboratory). The Teaching Committee assigns a letter grade to the instructor for that course. These grades have direct bearing upon raises and future teaching assignments.

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

The student course evaluation contains ten questions about the effectiveness of the course and the instructor's teaching methods and three open ended questions concerning both the course and the instructor.

A paid graduate student processes the evaluations electronically, cleans up the data, and runs a statistical program that records results. Copies of individual course results are sent to each instructor, and put together in a departmental book, together with a summary sheet. The summary sheet lists instructors alphabetically (separately for faculty and graduate TAs) and includes the course number, section number, mean overall teaching effectiveness rating to two decimals, number of students completing the evaluation, and number of students enrolled. Based on departmental experience, scores below 1.50 (on a scale of 1 - 5) represent outstanding performance; scores above 3.00 represent weak performance.

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

As part of its three-year review and tenure process, the English Department conducts an intensive series of interviews with former students of the faculty member under consideration. Using a standard set of questions to the conversations, three committee members talk with 20 to 30 former undergraduate students and 10 graduate students. The students are randomly selected from the class

rolls from prior years and are assured that their comments will remain anonymous. Individual committee members interview each student for fifteen minutes, transcribing comments along the way, and writes a brief narrative of his or her overall impressions. The three reports are then melded into one summary report of two pages or so, becoming a major component of the review dossier.

This process, while labor intensive, offers several advantages over more rudimentary ways of evaluating teaching. Since it is interactive, it permits evaluators to tailor their questions to areas that seem in special need of discussion. It provides deeper evaluations than those dashed off on in-class forms or quantitative evaluations. It explores teaching at every level, graduate as well as undergraduate, differentiating strengths and weaknesses more clearly. It bases its judgments on the comments of students who have completed the course and who are thus in a better position to evaluate grading practices and to compare the course with others in the department. It blends peer and student evaluations into a coherent overview and it demonstrates to students that their opinions and experiences matter to the department.

THE CURRY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

Teaching effectiveness is based upon the appropriateness of objectives, the achievement of objectives, and the integrity of the course processes in pursuit of objectives. The standardized evaluation form includes thirteen items together with additional questions for written responses. Many faculty use individually designed, open-ended evaluation forms to assess the unique aspects of their own courses.

THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

Student evaluations are required for every course, using a computer processed form. The form uses a five point scale (a = well above average, e = well below average). The second half of the form asks for written remarks about the course.

The form contains five questions about the course: the level of difficulty, accomplishment of course objectives, the level of student effort, usefulness of homework assignments, and helpfulness of the textbook. Eight questions concern the instructor: organization and development of the course material, instructor's knowledge of the subject matter, instructor's level of preparation, instructor's accessibility for individual assistance, fairness of grading policy, instructor's ability to respond to in-class questions, relevance of the quizzes to the main points of the course, and rating of the instructor as a teacher compared to others in the school.

The report lists the responses for each question and an average for each question. For comparison, the report also lists the school average for that semester and same level courses (100, 200, etc.) for each question. Finally, the report gives an over-all average for the course and instructor scores and compares this with the school average and standard deviation. Each instructor can tell how s/he scored on the student evaluations compared to other faculty teaching the same level courses. The report forms are sent to the instructor after the end of the semester and a copy is kept in the Dean's Office.

B. Peer Review and Teaching Portfolios:

"Each department or school should take steps concerning the evaluation of teaching: (1) to instruct faculty members to assemble teaching portfolios based on the criteria developed by schools and departments; (2) to review the teaching portfolios of its faculty members annually as part of the basis for making salary recommendations." (Targeting Excellence, p. 68)

TEACHING RESOURCE CENTER

Teaching Portfolios: The TRC annually offers "Analyzing and Improving Your Teaching: A Workshop on Teaching Portfolios" to faculty and graduate students. During a ten-day period, participants meet several times as a group and with individual mentors in order to create their individual teaching portfolios. Former participants volunteer to serve as mentors at future workshops (currently 2/3 of workshop participants have served as mentors). Completed UVa. portfolios are available for consultation at the TRC, as are books and articles explaining the process.

MCINTIRE SCHOOL OF COMMERCE

The McIntire School of Commerce has three approaches to evaluating teaching. The first is the annual report that requires submission of the faculty's syllabi and newly developed teaching material and the student evaluation forms from the previous two semesters. This annual report is then discussed with the faculty member at his/her annual meeting with the dean and associate dean.

The second method of evaluating faculty teaching is the required "Peer Reviews" for untenured faculty members. All untenured faculty classes are visited each semester after they have taught two years at the McIntire School. The Peer Review program consists of a class visit each semester by a tenured colleague. The reviewer is assigned by the Appointments, Promotion and Tenure (APT) Committee. The reviewer submits a report to the APT Committee. The report should cover the following aspects of the faculty member's class: the organization of subject material, communication skills (voice level, eye contact, examples and explanations), student interaction and attention during the class, and the faculty member's knowledge of the subject. The report should comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the faculty's teaching.

The third evaluation of teaching is the required student evaluation ("Course Feedback Survey"). The student evaluation form has fourteen multiple choice questions about the course and four open-end questions. The open-end questions concern the strongest and weakest aspect of the course and an open-end question about the instructor. The results of the multiple choice questions are summarized and compared to other instructors who teach the same course, within the faculty member's area and in the McIntire School.

THE CURRY SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

Instructors often make use of peer evaluations to supplement student evaluations. These evaluations are required of faculty being considered for tenure. They vary greatly but generally include attention to classroom climate, instructional strategies, content and general rapport with students. Some faculty also request collegial feedback from other institutions or from the Teaching Resource Center.

II. Development of Teaching

"Concerning Junior Faculty: to reinforce the expectation that junior faculty will demonstrate an ability to teach effectively; to assist junior faculty in developing into effective teachers by teaching courses related to their research, repeating courses for several semesters in succession, enabling team-teaching with senior faculty, not assigning junior faculty certain courses by default, giving access to experienced TAs, assigning minimal committee work." (Targeting Excellence, p. 68)

TEACHING RESOURCE CENTER

Teaching Workshops: The TRC offers two annual conferences with concurrent sessions by UVa faculty as well as workshops throughout the University, offered to individual departments.

DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY

This fall the Biology Department instituted a mentoring program for the three newest assistant professors. The reasoning was that each of the new faculty need a seasoned colleague who has a declared willingness to help with the preparation of grant proposals (e.g., reading proposals, providing detailed criticism); to assist in their development of teaching skills (e.g., by attending several class lectures given by the junior faculty member and providing pointers and critiques aimed at improving teaching performance); and to help in clarifying the University's and the Department's expectations of faculty members.

At this point the mentoring is rather informal. Each of these new faculty were asked to name a full professor whom they would like to have as a mentor. As it worked out, one of the new faculty requested two mentors - both of whom were willing to serve, and the other two new faculty requested the same mentor - who was willing to help the two of them. The three mentors and their protégés will meet at least once each semester to learn how the process is working and to address any problems that need to be addressed.

THE DARDEN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

New faculty members, who are unfamiliar with the case method of teaching, are encouraged to ask senior colleagues to sit in on a significant proportion of their courses for the purpose of critiquing and coaching. This process requires senior faculty time for pre-class meetings, attending class, and post-class debriefs. In this mode, the new faculty member will also observe a number of classes taught by his/her colleagues. On occasion, the designated senior faculty mentor receives some release time to fulfill this role.

MCINTIRE SCHOOL OF COMMERCE

Effective teaching is formally developed at the McIntire School of Commerce through three means. First, teaching is evaluated each semester with a standardized course feedback survey. The second formalized method of teaching development is the peer visitation program. Each semester of the first two years at McIntire, faculty members' classes are visited by a colleague within their academic area. The senior faculty member's visitations are strictly for the development of the new faculty member. No written record of the visit is seen, or kept, by any member of the administration, area coordinator or Appointments, Promotion and Tenure Committee. The senior faculty member gives his/her oral comments directly to the junior faculty member. To the extent possible, the same senior faculty member will visit the junior faculty member's class each semester until the junior faculty member becomes available for contract renewal, usually in the third year. The in-class visitation is in addition to the Teaching Resource Center's activities, which are strongly recommended to new faculty members. In addition, new faculty are required to participate in the McIntire School's three half-day new-faculty orientation seminars. These seminars were coordinated with the Teaching Resource Center's two half-day orientation seminars for new faculty.

The third formal method of teaching development at McIntire are the faculty development seminars that are held three or four times a year. Examples of these faculty-run seminars include effective teaching techniques, i.e., case teaching, group projects, grading, and experiential teaching. During some years the faculty development seminars will evolve around a theme. For example, international seminars were presented by faculty from around the Grounds (College of Arts & Sciences and Darden) during the academic years of 1993-1994 and 1994-1995.

Faculty development is planned and conducted by a faculty-initiated committee. The committee has worked hard to keep faculty development separate from the evaluation process. The evaluation of faculty members' teaching is conducted by the area coordinator, dean and the APT Committee.

THE SCHOOL OF LAW

The Law School initiated its Teaching Partnerships program in the spring of 1995. The idea came from the Teaching Committee, which the Dean recently created for the purpose of developing proposals to support faculty self-improvement in teaching. The Committee opened up the program to the entire faculty. Twenty-three teaching partnerships were formed, representing more than two-thirds of the full-time law faculty. The program is currently in its third semester of operation.

The Teaching Partnerships program is voluntary and directed toward improvement rather than evaluation. The idea is to make the teaching review as routine and part of the culture as circulating drafts of articles in progress; the hope is that the benefits will be similar. Under the program, faculty members match up and agree to visit each other's classes several times during the semester and to follow up with discussions of strengths and weaknesses. The participants may either choose their partners or put their names into a pool and have the Committee choose for them. In addition to class visits, the Committee recommends, but does not require, that the participants videotape at least one class for each partner, review the videotape, interview students from the partner's classes, and participate in workshops on teaching methods.

The faculty response to the Teaching Partnerships program has generally been enthusiastic. Although faculty have a wide margin of views about the specifics of the program, most seem to agree that getting the program started was a valuable step and that the details can be modified as we gain experience with the program.

III. Incentives for Superior Teaching:

"Each school and department should take steps: (1) to ensure that success in tenure, promotion, and ongoing faculty evaluation depend on effective teaching as well as on significant research and creative work; and (2) to encourage faculty, through summer grants, to improve their courses, enhance their classroom presentations and pedagogical strategies with advanced technology, and explore the connections between their research and teaching." (Targeting Excellence, p. 68)

TEACHING RESOURCE CENTER

University Teaching Fellows is a program that enables six assistant professors to work with Senior Mentors to develop new or greatly revised courses.

Teaching and Technology Initiative Program, organized by the Provost and ITC, gives Fellows released time and necessary equipment to incorporate innovative technology into their course work and teaching. The TRC coordinates Fellow's interactions with each other and facilitates their sharing of expertise and information.

NEH Special Challenge Grant for Endowed Distinguished Teaching Professorships is located in the College of Arts & Sciences. Each of three Distinguished Teaching Professorships will establish connections among Virginia colleagues in his/her academic discipline, creating a conference at UVa to discuss teaching in that discipline.

THE DARDEN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

The executive education program depends in large measure on excellent teaching. Instructors are generally compensated on a fee-for-service basis. The executive education program consists of small faculty teams of highly motivated teachers who take pride in their teaching skills and devote considerable time and attention to the program's continued success.

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

Forty percent of the annual pay raise is dependent upon the evaluation of teaching, based on a report of the department's Teaching Committee.

UNIVERSITY SEMINARS

The opportunity to teach small classes for first-and-second-year students is reserved for those with excellent teaching records.

Academic Affairs Committee:

  • Edward Ayers, Chair
  • Milton Adams
  • Marva Barnett
  • Harold Burbach
  • George Cohen
  • Richard DeMong
  • Doris Glick
  • Theo van Groll
  • Mark Haskins
  • Benjamin Ray
  • Diane Snustad
  • Ingrid Soudek