Teaching Strategies: Evaluation of Teaching Effectiveness

The articles and links in this section provide information about multiple methods for collecting data on teaching effectiveness. The overview includes articles and links with advice for best practices in teaching evaluation and examples of comprehensive systems of evaluation. The section on peer review includes a method for sound classroom observation as well as discussion of reviewing course materials. Finally, the last section on student ratings and midterm student feedback includes summaries of the extensive body of research on this topic, including tips for best practices in the administration and interpretation of ratings. CRLT has numerous books and articles on evaluation, and we are available to consult with administrators and executive committees as they develop or revise their approaches.

Overviews Methods Evaluating Teaching http://www.crlt.umich.edu/evaluation/teacheval.php An overview of teaching evaluation that includes basic principles of best practice as well as a description of multiple methods and data sources for evaluation. How to Evaluate Teaching ( Felder and Brent, 2004) http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Columns/Teacheval.pdf This article offers a brief outline of a process for obtaining a comprehensive evaluation of the quality of a faculty member's teaching using multiple sources of data. IDEA Paper #36: Appraising Teaching Effectiveness: Beyond Student Ratings (Donald P. Hoyt and William H. Pallett, 1999, IDEA Center) http://www.theideacenter.org/sites/default/files/Idea_Paper_36.pdf This paper describes direct and indirect benefits of several sources for evaluating teaching effectiveness, including ratings from students, colleagues, and the department chair. It also details specific schedules for evaluating different types of teachers, such as first year faculty, non-tenured, and tenured (see p. 6). Evaluation and report templates are found in the appendices. Obtaining and Giving Feedback to GSIs (from CRLT Handbook on Departmental GSI Training) http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/depthndbk/Chapt7(2007).pdf

This resource discusses several ways faculty coordinators can provide GSIs with feedback on their teaching, both for improvement and for personnel decisions. Methods include student feedback, self evaluation, peer observation, viewing a videotape of your teaching, and consultation with a CRLT staff member or someone from your department. Peer Review of Teaching A Protocol for Peer Review of Teaching. ( Brent and Felder, 2004) http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Papers/ASEE04(Peer-Review).pdf An outline of a system for obtaining a reliable peer rating of the quality of course instruction. How do I design a peer review program? http://teachingacademy.wisc.edu/archive/Assistance/MOO/design.htm This resource from the University of WisconsinMadison teaching Academy aims to help departments design their own, unique, peer review program based on sound fundamental peer review ideas and the needs of the department. How do I conduct a review of a colleague's teaching? http://teachingacademy.wisc.edu/archive/Assistance/MOO/reviewer.htm This resource from UW-Madison details a five-step process for conducting a peer review of teaching. Specific techniques to assist reviewers in providing feedback are included at the end of the page. Student Ratings and Midterm Student Feedback Office of Evaluations and Examinations http://www.umich.edu/~eande/ The University of Michigans E&E Office helps teachers and departments collect student evaluations of University courses, conduct classroom examinations, and administer placement exams. IDEA Paper #32: Summary of Student Ratings Research (Cashin, 1995, IDEA Center) http://www.theideacenter.org/sites/default/files/Idea_Paper_32.pdf A review of the major literature on student ratings from 1971-1995. Literature Review on Student Ratings (Ali and Sell, 1998, University of Calgary) http://www.ucalgary.ca/usri/node/48 Making Sense of Student Evaluations (Reihman, Lehigh University) http://www.lehigh.edu/~infdli/FD-evaluations.htm

Advice for reacting to your own set of instructor evaluations. The authors view is that although no measure of teaching effectiveness is perfect, teachers can nevertheless gain a great deal by taking our student evaluations seriously. To that end, he offers suggestions for how to approach student evaluations. RateMyProfessors.com versus formal in-class student evaluations of teaching (Coladarci & Kornfield, University of Maine, 2007) http://pareonline.net/pdf/v12n6.pdf Study finds a correlation between institutional student evaluations of teaching and scores on ratemyprofessor.com. The authors suggest that institutions should make student evaluation data available publicly, since students are using those data available to them. Midterm Student Feedback (MSF) http://www.crlt.umich/tstrategies/tsmsf.php Description of a CRLT service that allows instructors to collect feedback from students while there is still time in the term to make changes. A CRLT consultant collects the feedback and consults with the instructor about the results. Related Items: Evaluation of Student Learning (Testing, Grading, Feedback) http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/teachings.php#studentlearning Scholarship of Teaching and Learning http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tsst.php back to top
http://www.crlt.umich.edu/tstrategies/tseot.php

Teacher evaluation by students

Teachers, too, should be graded. Photo: Tanvir Ahmed/ DriknewsS.

M. Anwaruddin

THE relationship between teachers and students in our education system is similar to what Paulo Freire, a famous Brazilian educator and writer, calls "banking concept of education." In this type of education, a teacher is a depositor and students are the depositories. Students are considered empty accounts to be filled by their teachers. Freire suggests that the dichotomy between teacher and student be eliminated. Both teachers and students should be equal participants in classrooms. A teacher should teach and learn; a student should learn and teach. Thus, Freire's view on education and pedagogical practices is very democratic. I do not think that our students at any level enjoy this democratic participation in their learning. Freire would tell us to have a "dialogue" between teachers and students, which must be based on "love, humility, and faith" if we wanted mutual trust between our students and teachers. Unfortunately, the existing student-teacher relationship does not seem to be founded upon love, humility, and faith.

In my experience of education through primary school to university, students' opinions matter very little or not at all. For many, one of the key criteria of academic success is whether or not your teachers like you. Students are afraid of sharing their opinions lest they should contradict their teachers. At university level, students in their freshman year vie with each other in order to become the teachers' favourite student. It is also a common practice among students to ask their senior students about what a particular teacher likes in students' tasks and assignments. It indicates that a student wants to work in a way that a particular teacher likes, and earns a better grade. Moreover, students hardly receive an assessment of their academic performance. What they get for their assignments and exam scripts is a grade. This does not help students at all. They need to know how they can improve. A university student told me that she wanted to know why she received a grade lower than her expectation, and the teacher said: "It needs to be better." But the teacher never explained how the assignment could be better. What I learned from another graduate student, who was having a hard time choosing her thesis topic, was alarming. Every time she went to her supervisor, he rejected the topic, saying "it is not a good topic." But, unfortunately, he neither suggested a topic nor guided the student through the process of selecting a research topic. These examples indicate a sort of rigidity in teachers' attitudes and carelessness towards students' learning and development. This is, however, not entirely an individual teacher's fault. It is rather a generational practice. What I mean by generational practice is that today's teachers were students yesterday. They practice what they learned from their earlier generation. Like any generation, they are also handing this practice down to their next generation. This cyclical process of teachers' authoritarian practices, and separating students from the process of effective learning, has many negative effects on democracy and equality. One of them is transmission of authoritarian behaviour to students who will eventually assume crucial social or political roles. To claim that all teachers are authoritarian will be a hasty generalisation, though some students are shocked by their teachers' behaviour. We have also seen that students have to demand publication of their results. Unnecessary delay in publishing the results has a negative impact on a student's career. Another example of teachers' irresponsible behaviour is teaching fewer classes than required for a course. Many of them are often found involved in political affairs, personal business, private tutoring, or other part-time jobs. If teachers are live models for students, then what do these activities teach their students? It is not easy to change these practices overnight. Moreover, exclusion of students from the educational process has also become a part of academic culture. As a matter of fact, a young teacher who suffered from this problem a few years ago as a student is now with the teachers. Another obstacle is that human beings are generally reluctant to go out of their comfort zone. Who wants to share power with others? This power-sharing will also incur more work for the teachers because checks-and-balances will make them more responsible towards their duties. We need to change these views if we want to build a truly educated and democratic nation.

Changing any age-old tradition is easier said than done. First of all, we need to have love, humility, and faith. As the architects of this nation, our teachers need to include their students in the educational process. One of the first initiatives in this inclusion should be teacher evaluation by students. If we believe in democracy, we should also believe that everybody has to be accountable. To whom, then, is a teacher accountable? At present, the answer seems to be the administration of an educational institution. But, how can the administration know about a teacher's performance? The administration is not the primary audience of a teacher! Teachers' main responsibility is to effectively teach their students; therefore, they should be accountable to the students. The students should be the main evaluators of teachers' performance. Anonymous teacher evaluation by students at the end of each semester or academic year can no doubt help eliminate the vertical power relationship between teachers and students. A few universities have already introduced teacher evaluation by students. This is definitely a ray of hope for a democratic education system. Now we need an obligatory implementation of teacher evaluation at all academic institutions. For the greater benefit of our students as future stakeholders of democracy and national development, it is important to introduce the proposed evaluation system. The outcomes will be positive and manifold. First, teachers will be mindful of their job responsibilities. For example, they will teach the required number of classes for each course. Second, they will receive feedback from students regarding their teaching procedures. They may need to change their teaching methods and do further study for effective teaching. Third, the feedback received from students' comments will help them reflect on their performance. And this reflection is the main key to teachers' professional development. Finally, the evaluation by the students will work as a check on discrimination, negligence, and favouritism. Thus, the proposed evaluation system will encourage the authoritarian teachers to change their behaviour. The administration should quantify and score the evaluation for each teacher and keep the records for future uses such as promotion, tenure, and so forth. Then the evaluation results should be given to the teachers after they submit the students' final grades. Now the teachers will have an opportunity to reflect on their own teaching during the previous semester or year. Thus, every semester/year, teachers will get a chance to work on their professional development. If we believe that education should be democratic and all of us can learn from others, then, as teachers, we should not have any problem in accepting the students' opinions and judgments. One thing that deserves to be restated is that the anonymity of this evaluation process has to be strictly maintained. I, therefore, propose that our government make it obligatory for each academic institution to have students evaluate their teachers at the end of each semester or academic year. And by respecting students' views and involving them in an active learning process, we as teachers can serve as live models for students through our words and behaviour.

S.M. Anwaruddin Khan is a Lecturer of English (on study leave) at Brac University Centre for Languages. Tuesday, December 22, 2009

http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=118668

Statement on Teaching Evaluation

The statement that follows was prepared by the Associations Committee on Teaching, Research, and Publication. It was adopted by the Associations Council in June 1975 and endorsed by the Sixty-first Annual Meeting. In April 1990, the Council adopted several changes in language that had been approved by the Committee on Teaching, Research, and Publication in order to remove gender-specific references from the original text.

In response to a chronic need for arriving at fair judgments of a faculty members teaching, the Association sets forth this statement as a guide to proper teaching evaluation methods and their appropriate uses in personnel decisions. This statement confines itself to the teaching responsibilities of college and university professors and is not intended as the definitive statement on reviewing and weighing all aspects of a faculty members work. In addressing itself to teaching, the statement has no intention of minimizing the importance of other faculty responsibilities. There is a need for assessment of a teachers scholarship both more precise and more extensive than commonly employed. There is a need to define service and the value attached to it as well as to review carefully the kind and quality of service performed by faculty members. Additional guidance in the complex task of reviewing faculty service is to be found in other Association documents: the Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments, the Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure, the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, and the Statement on Faculty Workload.

Statement
Colleges and universities properly aspire to excellence in teaching. Institutional aspirations, however, have not often led to practices that clearly identify and reward teaching excellence, and the quality of teaching is not in fact the determining consideration in many decisions on retention, promotion, salary, and tenure. The aspirations of faculty members are often frustrated, because they must wrestle with diverse obligationscommonly identified as teaching, research, and serviceplaced upon them by the profession at large, the scholarly discipline, the institution, and their own varied interests. Establishing a positive relationship between the institutions and the departments aspirations and the individuals competencies and aims is one outcome of fair and thorough faculty review procedures.
1. Institutional Values and Policies.

Making clear the expectations the institution places upon the teacher and providing the conditions and support necessary to excellent teaching are primary institutional obligations. It is a first order of business that institutions declare their values and communicate them with sufficient clarity to enable colleges and departments to set forth specific expectations as to teaching, research, and service, and to make clear any other faculty obligations. Both institutionwide and college or department policies on promotion, salary, and tenure should be written and subject to periodic review, a process in which faculty members must play a central part. 2. Expectations, Criteria, and Procedures. At the college or department level the expectations as to teaching, the weighting of teaching in relation to other expectations, and the criteria and procedures by which the fulfillment of these expectations is to be judged should be put in writing and periodically reviewed by all members of the college or department. This policy statement should specify the information that is to be gathered for all faculty members, the basic procedures to be followed in gathering it, and the time schedule for various aspects of the review process. Such information should include firsthand data from various sources, including students, and should emphasize the primacy of faculty colleague judgments of teaching effectiveness at the first level of review and recommendation. 3. Adequate Evaluation Data. Casual procedures, a paucity of data, and unilateral judgments by department chairs and deans too often characterize the evaluation of teaching in American colleges and universities. Praiseworthy and systematic efforts to improve the processes of teaching evaluation have moved toward identifying characteristics of effective teaching and recognizing and weighting the multiple aspects of an individual teachers performance. A judicious evaluation of a college professor as teacher should include: (a) an accurate factual description of what an individual does as teacher, (b) various measures of the effectiveness of these efforts, and (c) fair consideration of the relation between these efforts and the institutions and the departments expectations and support. An important and often overlooked element of evaluating teaching is an accurate description of a professors teaching. Such a description should include the number and level and kinds of classes taught, the numbers of students, and out-of-class activities related to teaching. Such data should be very carefully considered both to guard against drawing unwarranted conclusions and to increase the possibilities of fairly comparing workloads and kinds of teaching, of clarifying expectations, and of identifying particulars of minimum and maximum performance. Other useful information might include evidence of the ability of a teacher to shape new courses, to reach different levels and kinds of students, to develop effective teaching strategies, and to contribute to the effectiveness of the individuals and the institutions instruction in other ways than in the classroom. The gathering of such data can promote a careful consideration of both the institutions and the departments values. If a department, for example, places great value upon teaching large numbers of lower-level students, that value should be reflected in the judgments about teachers who perform such tasks effectively. Too often, even at the simple point of numbers and kinds of students taught, departments and institutions operate on value assumptions seldom made clear to the faculty.

Another kind of data that should be systematically gathered and examined by the teachers colleagues includes course syllabi, tests, materials, and methods employed in instruction. Care should be taken that such scrutiny not inhibit the teacher, limit the variety of effective teaching styles, or discourage purposeful innovation. Evidence of a concern for teaching and teaching competence demonstrated in publications, attendance at meetings, delivery of lectures, and consulting should also be included among the essential information to be reviewed. 4. Assessing the Effectiveness of Instruction. Student learning. Evaluation of teaching usually refers to efforts made to assess the effectiveness of instruction. The most valid measure is probably the most difficult to obtain, that is, the assessment of a teachers effectiveness on the basis of the learning of his or her students. On the one hand, a students learning is importantly influenced by much more than an individual teachers efforts. On the other, measures of before-and after learning are difficult to find, control, or compare. From a practical point of view, the difficulties of evaluating college teaching on the basis of changes in student performance limit the use of such a measure. The difficulties, however, should not rule out all efforts to seek reliable evidence of this kind. Teaching performance. Evaluating teaching on the basis of teaching performance also presents difficulties in measurement, but the large body of research into the reliability and validity of carefully applied performance measures supports the practical usefulness of these data. Data on teaching performance commonly come from trained observers, faculty colleagues, and students. Student perception. Student perceptions are a prime source of information from those who must be affected if learning is to take place. Student responses can provide continuing insights into a number of the important dimensions of a teachers efforts: classroom performance, advising, and informal and formal contacts with students outside of class. A variety of ways are available to gather student opinion, ranging from informal questioning of individual students about details of a specific course to campus-wide questionnaires. Faculty members should be meaningfully involved in any systematic efforts to obtain student opinion. Cooperation among students, faculty, and administration is necessary to secure teaching performance data that can be relied upon. No one questionnaire or method is suitable to every department or institution. Different kinds of questionnaires can be useful in assessing different kinds of courses and subject matters and in meeting the need for information of a particular kind. However, a common instrument covering a range of teachers, departments, and subject matter areas has the great advantage of affording meaningful comparative data. The important consideration is to obtain reliable data over a range of teaching assignments and over a period of time. Evaluations in which results go only to the individual professor may be of use in improving an individual teachers performance, but they contribute little to the process of faculty review. Student input need not be limited by course evaluations. Exit interviews, questionnaires to alumni, and face-to-face discussion are other ways in which student feedback can be profitably gathered. Classroom visitation. Because of the usefulness of having first-hand information about an individuals teaching effectiveness, some institutions have adopted a program of classroom visitation. There are various ways of having colleagues visit classrooms, but such visits do not necessarily yield reliable data. Careful observations over a period of time may, however, be

useful in evaluating instruction and in fostering effective teaching. Clearly, there must be an understanding among the visitors and the visited upon such matters as who does the visiting, how many visits are made, what visitors look for, what feedback is given to the visited, and what other use is made of the information. Self-evaluation. Some institutions draw upon self-evaluation as an element in assessing teaching. The limitations on self-evaluation are obvious, and neither the teacher nor the institution should be satisfied with self-evaluation alone. However, faculty members as individuals or as members of committees can assist colleagues in making the kind of selfevaluation which constitutes a contribution to improving and evaluating teaching. Arousing an interest in self-examination, structuring self-evaluations so that they might afford more reliable data, and giving faculty members the opportunity to assess their own teaching effectiveness and to add their own interpretation of student ratings and classroom visitations can increase the usefulness of self-evaluation as a part of the review process. Outside opinions. Some institutions seek outside opinions and judgments as to a professors competence. Reliable outside judgments about an individuals teaching, however, are difficult to secure. It would be a mistake to suppose that a college teachers scholarly reputation is an accurate measure of teaching ability. Visiting teams from the outside, given ample time to observe the teacher, to talk with students, and to examine relevant data, might prove a useful, though expensive, means of improving the quality of evaluation. Information and opinions from faculty members in other departments and from persons outside the university should be sought when an individuals teaching assignment and the informants first-hand knowledge appear to justify their use. 5. Procedures. The emphasis in evaluation should be upon obtaining first-hand evidence of teaching competence, which is most likely to be found among the faculty of a department or college and the students who receive instruction. Evaluation of teaching in which an administrators judgment is the sole or determining factor is contrary to policies set forth in the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities. The institutions commitment to teaching should be manifested in concrete ways. For example, some institutions have adopted policies that make recommendations for promotion unacceptable unless they provide strong and convincing evidence of teaching competence. Combining the systematic evaluation of teaching with direct efforts to assist teachers in developing their effectiveness is another example of institutional commitment. It is the responsibility of the institution and the colleges, departments, or other instructional divisions to establish and maintain written policies and procedures that ensure a sound basis for individual judgments fairly applied to all. Faculty members should have a primary, though not exclusive, role in evaluating an individual faculty members performance as teacher. Factual data, student opinion, and colleague judgments should be central in the formal procedures for review which should involve faculty discussion and vote. Those being evaluated should be invited to supply information and materials relevant to that evaluation. If the department does not have final authority, the facultys considered judgment should constitute the basic recommendation to the next level of responsibility, which may be a college-wide or university-wide faculty committee. If the chairs

recommendation is contrary to that of the department faculty, the faculty should be informed of the chairs reasons prior to the chairs submitting his or her recommendation and that of the faculty and should be given an opportunity to respond to the chairs views. The deans function, where separate from that of a chair or division head, is typically one of review and recommendation either in the deans own person or through an official review body at that level. If the recommendation at this level is contrary to that of the department chair or faculty, opportunity should be provided for discussion with the chair or faculty before a formal recommendation is made. Final decisions should be made in accordance with the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities: The governing board and president should, on questions of faculty status, as in other matters where the faculty has primary responsibility, concur with the faculty judgment except in rare instances and for compelling reasons which should be stated in detail.1 Procedures in accordance with the Associations Recommended Institutional Regulations on Academic Freedom and Tenure and the Statement on Procedural Standards in the Renewal or Nonrenewal of Faculty Appointments should be provided to handle faculty grievances arising from advancement recommendations. 6. Some Further Implications. The responsible evaluation of teaching does not serve advancement procedures alone. It should be wisely employed for the development of the teacher and the enhancement of instruction. Both of these aims can be served by the presence of a faculty committee charged with the overall responsibility of remaining conversant with the research in evaluating teaching and of providing assistance in maintaining sound policies and procedures in reviewing faculty performance. The full dimensions of teaching should not be slighted in the desire to arrive at usable data and systematic practices. Though teaching can be considered apart from scholarship and service, the general recognition of these three professional obligations suggests that the relationships are important. The kind of teaching that distinguishes itself in colleges and universities is integral with scholarship, has a way of getting outside classroom confines, and may exemplify the highest meaning of service. A judicious evaluation system would recognize the broad dimensions of teaching, be sensitive to different kinds and styles of instruction, and be as useful in distinguishing superior teaching from the merely competent as in identifying poor teaching.

Note
1. AAUP, Policy Documents and Reports, 10th ed. (Washington, D.C., 2006), 139. Back to text
http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/pubsres/policydocs/contents/evalstatement.htm

Teacher Evaluations
Qualitative accounts of your academic abilities are important to us. We require two teacher evaluations, and we strongly request that these letters come from teachers who taught you in grades 11 or 12. You may submit an evaluation from a teacher who taught you in grade 10 if the coursework was advanced (e.g. Honors, AP, IB, etc.) in a particular subject. If your school does not offer such designations, use your discretion when asking a teacher from grade 10 to write you a letter. We will accept a maximum of two teacher evaluations. Both evaluation letters must be from teachers in two different subject areas from the following:

English Mathematics Science Foreign Language History/Social Sciences

The best advice we can give is to ask teachers who like you and who will share unique examples of your academic strengths and personal qualities.
Mailing Instructions

We strongly request that teachers submit their evaluations online through the Common Application website and include the Common Application Teacher/Instructor Evaluation form. If a teacher decides to mail the form and letter, please provide the appropriate Stanford mailing label.

Application Mailing Labels (PDF)

Optional Letter

You may submit a maximum of one optional letter of recommendation if there is another personNOT a teacher or counselorwho knows you well and will provide us with different information and new insights about you. We ask that you instruct your additional recommender to put your full name (as listed on your application), your birth date, your current school, and your Common Application ID number at the top of the letter. Submitting an extra letter is entirely optional and is not expected. No special form is required. The recommender should fax the letter to our credentials office at (650) 723-6050. *PDF documents require the free downloadable Adobe Acrobat Reader software for viewing.

Last update: July 19, 2011 3:03 PM

http://admission.stanford.edu/application/freshman/evals.html

eacher Quality Resources

The following is a list of resources, including publications and websites, that provide additional information on the latest research, policies and discussions focused on teacher quality. Check back regularly as we will periodically update this page with additional resources.

Publications
Teacher Evaluation Ensuring Accurate Feedback from Observations (Craig Jerald for the Gates Foundation, March 2012) As states and districts across the country roll out new teacher evaluation and support systems, a new report from the Gates Foundation provides lessons from leading practitioners about how to ensure the classroom observations that are a lynchpin of those systems produce accurate results. Ensuring Accurate Feedback from Observations offers methodsincluding those used in TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancementto ensure that classroom observations provide teachers with the critical feedback they need to improve their practice and addresses key considerations and lessons from early implementers. The report examines topics from how to select a rubric to training and certifying raters. When done well, classroom observations should be a springboard to providing the supports needed for teachers to continually improve their practice. Movin' It and Improvin' It! - Using Both Education Strategies to Increase Teaching Effectiveness (Craig Jerald for the Center for American Progress [CAP], January 2012) Written for CAP by leading education researcher Craig Jerald, this report discusses reforms to teacher evaluation systems in the wake of the U.S. Department of Education's Race to the Top program. Jerald identifies two prevalent strategies for boosting teacher effectiveness: "movin' it" and "improvin' it." Jerald categorizes state policies that base decisions about tenure, layoffs, and dismissal on results of the new evaluations as "movin' it" strategies. On the other hand, "improvin' it" strategies refer to providing all teachers with useful feedback following classroom observations or using the results of evaluation to individualize professional development. CAP advocates a combination of the two strategies to maximize increases in teacher effectiveness. The organization also argues that federal and state policymakers should incentivize school systems to eradicate ineffectual and unproven professional development and invest in proven models. The TAP system is cited as one promising model. Research Brief: A Teacher Evaluation System That Works Working Paper: A Teacher Evaluation System That Works

(Glenn Daley and Lydia Kim, August 2010) The NIET Working Paper A Teacher Evaluation System That Works analyzes evidence from TAP's work in the field that validates the strength of TAP's evaluation system in differentiating effective from ineffective teaching; producing classroom evaluations and value-added student growth evaluations that are correlated with and complementary to each other; providing useful information to enable teachers to improve their practice over time; and contributing to an increase in the retention of effective teachers as compared to ineffective teachers. The Research Brief summarizes the findings. Policy 2.0: Using Open Innovation to Reform Teacher Evaluation Systems (Hope Street Group, October 2009) This report outlines eight policy recommendations to better evaluate teacher performance: 1) objective measures of student achievement gains must be a major component of teacher evaluation; 2) clearly defined standards of quality instruction should be used to assess a teachers classroom performance; 3) teachers, teacher groups and unions should be included in developing and implementing teacher evaluation systems; 4) teacher evaluation systems themselves must be periodically evaluated and refined; 5) teacher evaluation systems should reflect the importance of supportive administrators and school environment to effective teaching; 6) components of teacher evaluation that rely on observation and discussion must be in the hands of instructional leaders who have sufficient expertise, training and capacity; 7) evaluations must differentiate levels of teaching efficacy to identify opportunities for professional growth, and drive rewards and consequences; and 8) information from teacher evaluations should be comparable across schools and districts, and should be used to address equity in the distribution of teaching talent. TAP is cited as an innovative solution to the current problems with teacher evaluation. More specifically, TAP is highlighted for working in collaboration with teachers and unions to develop and implement a teacher evaluation system. Fixing Tenure: A Proposal for Assuring Teacher Effectiveness and Due Process (Center for American Progress [CAP], June 2009) Written for CAP by Joan Baratz-Snowdenformer director of educational issues for the American Federation of Teachers and president of the Education Study Centerthis report examines the effectiveness of current tenure practices at maintaining a high-quality veteran teaching force and protecting teachers from arbitrary dismissal. After a review of tenure systems, the paper concludes that teacher tenure must be based on a strong, comprehensive evaluation system specifically designed to support best practice, and one that incorporates due process to support dismissal when necessary. Given these findings, the report recommends that an effective system include the following: 1) rigorous professional standards that reflect the complexity of teaching and learning; 2) a credible evaluation system that is multidimensional and requires multiple data sources, including standardized test scores where available; 3) collaboration between teachers and administrators; 4) evidence of student learning; 5) evidence of teachers' teaching and learning environment; and 6) professional judgment to grant and revoke tenure. The Widget Effect: Our National Failure to Acknowledge and Act on Differences in Teacher Effectiveness

(The New Teacher Project [TNTP], June 2009) This report examines the teacher evaluation systems of 12 diverse districts across Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois and Ohio and concludes that evaluation systems do not provide accurate and credible information about individual teachers instructional performance. Calling it the "widget effect," The New Teacher Project reveals that the teacher evaluation systems studied treat teachers as interchangeable parts by failing to recognize and address variations in teacher effectiveness. In response, TNTP recommends adopting a comprehensive and integrated performance evaluation system for which evaluators are competently trained and held accountable. So Long, Lake Wobegon? Using Teacher Evaluation to Raise Teacher Quality (Center for American Progress [CAP], June 2009) Written for CAP by Morgaen L. Donaldsonassistant professor of educational leadership at the University of Connecticut, research associate at the Center for Policy Analysis and research affiliate of the Project on the Next Generation of Teachers at Harvard Universitythis report discusses strategies for using teacher evaluation to raise teacher quality. The first section examines the structure of teacher evaluation and the role of student learning in assessments of teachers' effectiveness. The second section draws on research to examine the reasons why teacher evaluation has generally had little effect on instruction, learning and achievement. The third section assesses the current prospects for teacher evaluation reform. The paper concludes by offering seven recommendations to districts and states that seek to reform teacher evaluation to increase its impact on teaching, learning and achievement. Rush to Judgment: Teacher Evaluation in Public Education (Education Sector, January 2008) In this report, Thomas Toch and Robert Rothman examine the causes and consequences of the crisis in teacher evaluation, as well as its implications for the current national debate about performance pay for teachers. The report also examines a number of national, state and local evaluation systems that serve as models for how to improve teacher evaluations. Teacher Evaluation in Diversified Teacher Compensation Systems (Education Commission of the States [ECS], June 2007) This paper discusses various methods of evaluating teachers that are not related to student performance, such as in-class observation and evaluation of a teachers knowledge and skills.

http://www.tapsystem.org/policyresearch/policyresearch.taf?page=resources&pcat=2

Guidelines for Evaluating Teaching

Introduction

Just as there is no simple system for evaluating the quality of faculty research, there is no simple system for evaluating the quality of faculty teaching. However, by thinking carefully about the purposes of evaluation, and by crafting multiple methods of evaluation that suit those purposes, one can devise evaluation systems that are reliable, valid, and fair. Equally important, the process of discussing and crafting evaluation systems focuses attention on the practice of good teaching and helps to create a culture in which teaching is highly valued.
Some Principles of Teaching Evaluation 1. Multiple methods. The most important consideration in teaching evaluation, both for improvement purposes and for personnel decisions, is the use of multiple methods of teaching evaluation involving multiple sources of data. 2. Faculty, departmental and school responsibilities. To ensure that the evaluation system adopted is credible and acceptable, faculty members must have a strong hand in its development. Before departments and schools adopt teaching evaluation systems, the faculty members should determine their criteria for effective teaching. Departments and schools can then take responsibility for developing their own evaluation methods and evaluation criteria. Since different disciplines require different methods and settings for instruction, they require different methods and criteria for evaluation. This is also true for interdisciplinary instruction. Teaching evaluation systems can be flexible to accommodate diversity in instructional methods (e.g., lecture, discussion, lab, case study, small group interaction, practicum, studio, field work, clinical work, etc.). To promote compatibility within the university, standards should be reviewed, understood, and accepted by all groups involved in the promotion and tenure review process. 3. Individualizing teaching evaluation. Effective teaching evaluation must be individualized. A uniform system discriminates against some individuals, so a plan sensitive to individual variation should be developed. A faculty member should provide information about his/her contributions and accomplishments as a teacher on a longitudinal basis over his/her teaching career. Consideration can then be given to changes in emphasis and interest that will naturally occur in an academic career. 4. What may be assessed. Teaching evaluation has as its central element the assessment of the quality of classroom instruction. Since teaching includes activities broader than classroom instruction, evaluation of teaching must assess more than classroom performance. While departments and schools may identify additional items, among the teaching activities that may be assessed are the following:

1. quality, amount, and level of classroom instruction (including shared instruction) 2. development of curricula, new courses, and classroom materials; 3. supervision and mentoring of graduate students, including chairing of dissertations; 4. service on graduate examination and dissertation committees; 5. one-on-one consultation with students, including supervision of independent study and readings courses; 6. supervision of teaching assistants in undergraduate courses; 7. conduct and supervision of laboratory instruction; 8. supervision of undergraduate and graduate research; 9. advising students in the major; 10. supervision of field work; and 11. supervision of clinical and practicum experiences.
Some Sources of Data for Evaluating Teaching: Students, Colleagues, and Self-Reflection A. Students: Multiple Methods 1. End-of-course rating forms and written comments. Generally, students are able to report on the extent to which a teacher appears prepared for class sessions, communicates clearly, stimulates interest, and demonstrates enthusiasm and respect for students; research shows that student responses on these dimensions are valid and reliable. Generally, students are less able to judge the knowledge of the instructor or scholarly content and currency of a course. When using student ratings for personnel decisions and teaching improvement, institutions often include the following among their guidelines: a. Questions about instructors and courses should be relevant. They should fit the instructors and courses being evaluated. b. Multiple sets of ratings of faculty courses over time should be considered; personnel decisions should be influenced only by ratings from several courses over several terms. c. Because global ratings of the teacher or course tend to correlate higher with student learning than do more specific items, personnel decisions should rely more on global items (e.g., "Overall, this is an excellent course." "Overall, the instructor is an excellent teacher."). d. Comparative data (such as departmental, school, or institutional norms) should be provided so that individual evaluations can be interpreted within a meaningful context. For example, information about course characteristics (e.g., disciplinary field, class size, required/elective, lower division/upper division, etc.) should be considered when reviewing evaluation results. e. When results from student evaluation forms are used in personnel decisions, it is essential that standardized procedures for administering the forms be followed. Procedures should indicate who will distribute, collect and return

questionnaires; when the evaluations should take place; and when the evaluation results will be made available. f. Student rating results should be considered in personnel decisions only when most of the students in a class have completed the surveys. g. The use of optional items chosen by the instructor customizes and makes the forms more useful for teaching improvement purposes. h. Rating forms should include open-ended questions so that students can write their own comments. Written comments are particularly helpful in improving classroom performance. i. A knowledgeable colleague or teaching improvement consultant should be available to discuss evaluation results with individuals in order to help them interpret scores, provide encouragement, and suggest teaching improvement strategies.

2. Alumni letters and surveys. Many institutions request information from recent alumni (e.g., those who graduated two years ago and/or five years ago). Alumni have a perspective for evaluating both individual faculty members and the department's program. Alumni have the additional advantage of being able to judge the relevance of course work to their present situation. It should be noted, however, that information from alumni may do no more than agree with present students' assessment of teaching; studies have found alumni ratings of faculty correlate highly with those of current students. 3. Focus-group interviews, exit interviews, and surveys of students. Focus-group interviews and "exit interviews" may be used to provide information about faculty members and courses for personnel decisions and to strengthen a department's program. Interviews can provide a depth and breadth of information, elicit unanticipated responses, and allow for clarification of student satisfaction and concerns. Focus-group interviews, exit interviews, and surveys of graduating students are especially helpful in strengthening a department's program. 4. Mid-course and periodic student feedback. Feedback from students throughout the term is particularly helpful for teaching improvement purposes. Faculty may ask students to provide informal assessments of their teaching effectiveness at mid-semester by means of focus-group interviews with teaching consultants or through the use of student rating forms, especially ones that include open-ended questions. Throughout the term, faculty also may invite students to comment informally -- perhaps by e-mail or by writing short evaluations at the end of a class period. Mid-course feedback should not be used for summative evaluation unless an instructor chooses to include the feedback in a teaching dossier. 5. Evaluation of student learning. Throughout the term, faculty members may act as "classroom researchers," gathering measures of student learning in order to improve their teaching. Faculty may also wish to provide examples of student learning as evidence of their teaching effectiveness for personnel decisions.

B. Colleagues: Peer Review In most institutions, faculty and administrators have relied on student ratings of teaching effectiveness for teaching improvement purposes and for personnel decisions. Now, however, surveys about how teaching is evaluated on college and university campuses demonstrate an increase in use of faculty colleagues as raters of teaching effectiveness. Colleague review of teaching can play as significant a role as does peer evaluation of research. Colleagues who have expertise in the discipline being taught and training in what to observe can provide important evaluative information through classroom visits and review of course materials and instructional contributions. For a faculty member engaged in interdisciplinary instruction, evaluation may involve colleagues with expertise in similar interdisciplinary instruction and/or with expertise in each of the individual disciplines represented by the faculty member. 1. Evaluation of classroom teaching -- Colleagues can provide important evaluative information through classroom visits. In particular, a colleague's observation of such aspects of teaching as appropriateness of materials and methods, breadth and depth of material covered, the relation of such material to the syllabus and goals of the course, and incorporation of recent developments in the discipline can offer a more informed appraisal of the instructor's mastery of content than can students' perceptions. There is consensus that peer observation has enjoyed more success as a strategy for teaching improvement than for personnel decisions. When used for personnel decisions, it is important to have explicit criteria by which colleagues make evaluations. A standardized observation form will yield systematic and comparable data, especially if participating faculty are trained in what and how to observe. The evaluation process is enhanced when, prior to classroom visits, colleagues review the syllabus and course-related materials and discuss course goals and class objectives with the instructor. 2. Evaluation of course materials -- Colleagues can evaluate course materials, such as syllabi, textbooks, handouts, assignments, graded exams, graded papers, etc. In the visual and performing arts, colleagues may evaluate faculty-directed art exhibits, theater and dance productions, musical ensembles, and individual performances when these activities are directly related to a faculty member's instructional activities. Examination by colleagues offers several advantages: It properly uses faculty expertise, can be done in a reasonable period of time, and can be done anonymously (just as is done with peer review of research). It is also appealing because it can be used for both personnel decisions and for teaching improvement purposes. 3. Evaluation of instructional contributions -- Colleagues may be in the most advantageous position to evaluate such teaching-related activities as curriculum development, supervision of student research, participation in colleagues' and teaching assistants' teaching development, articles on teaching in disciplinary journals and other publications, and authorship of textbooks and other instructional materials. C. Self-Reflection: Teaching Dossiers The development of a teaching dossier (or portfolio) is a method that allows individuals

to collect and display multiple sources of information regarding their teaching effectiveness for examination by others. It contributes both to sound personnel decisions and to the professional development of individual faculty members. A dossier is a "factual description of a professor's major strengths and teaching achievements. It describes documents and materials which collectively suggest the scope and quality of a professor's teaching performance" (Seldin, 1991, p. 3). The purpose of the dossier will drive decisions about format and content. The purpose will also guide decisions about what materials will be reviewed and by whom. There is no single prescription for how a teaching dossier should be structured or what specific information it should contain. Each unit will need to decide what is important and relevant. Units might want to consider including information in the following three areas: 1. The background of the faculty member. The dossier may contain reflective statements by the faculty member on the development of and changes in his or her teaching philosophy, strategies, and objectives; efforts to evaluate and improve teaching and changes resulting from having done so; ways in which he or she has kept up with the professional field in areas related to teaching performance; and his or her future teaching goals. 2. The environment in which the faculty member works. For example, the faculty member may describe his or her current expectations regarding distribution of effort among teaching, research, and service activities; include a list of classes taught; discuss important details about these classes that may affect teaching, such as class size and the characteristics, abilities, and motivations of the students; and provide a list of other teaching-related responsibilities and accomplishments. 3. Elements regarding the faculty member's teaching process. The faculty member may provide the following: a. samples of teaching materials, such as course syllabi, laboratory assignments, and videotapes of classroom teaching; b. samples of student learning, such as exams, papers, projects, slides of student work, etc.; and c. the faculty member's reflections about the samples of teaching and learning materials. For example, a faculty member may comment on the reasons for curricular revisions; innovations or experiments with teaching methods or course structure; how and why a particular course's syllabus has changed from one year to another; why specific exam questions were chosen or specific assignments suggested; and ways in which students are provided feedback on exams and assignments. Concluding Remarks

Evaluation of teaching is not a science; there is still much to learn. However, as indicated in this brief set of guidelines, there is already a considerable body of knowledge about teaching evaluation. The academic community has a strong incentive to add to that knowledge since we

will not be able to recognize and reward teaching adequately until we craft a better system for evaluating it.
Selected Bibliography

Braskamp, Larry A.; Brandenburg, Dale C.; & Ory, John C. (1984). Evaluating teaching effectiveness: A practical guide. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Centra, John A. (1993). Reflective faculty evaluation: Enhancing teaching and determining faculty effectiveness. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Cross, K. Patricia; & Angelo, Thomas A. (1993). Classroom assessment techniques: A handbook for college teachers (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Edgerton, Russell; Hutchings, Patricia; & Quinlan, Kathleen. (1991). The teaching portfolio: Capturing the scholarship in teaching. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. Marsh, Herbert W. (1984). Students' evaluations of university teaching: Dimensionality, reliability, validity, potential biases, and utility. Journal of Educational Psychology, 76, 707-54. Seldin, Peter & Associates. (1990). How administrators can improve teaching: Moving from talk to action. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Seldin, Peter. (1997). The teaching portfolio (2nd ed.). Bolton, MA: Anker Publishing Company, Inc. back to top
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