Recognizing Faculty Teaching Effectiveness
The recently completed School Strategic Plan calls for guidelines to be prepared for use by departmental Budget Councils and the School Tenure and Promotion Review Committee, regarding the importance to be placed on teaching in salary advancement, promotion in rank, and tenure. The goal to be met is Goal 3 of the Plan which is to foster innovation in teaching, research, and practice, encourage entrepreneurship, and promote leadership in engineering’s service to society. The Plan also calls for these guidelines to be prepared by Associate Dean Neal Armstrong and the departmental Chairs in time for use in the 1999-2000 promotion cycle.
Engineering faculty are adept at documenting contributions to research and professional activities. Not all faculty are as familiar with ways to document their teaching successes. The attached Guidelines should help in this regard. As you can see, they address Teaching Process activities as well as Teaching Support activities. I encourage you to read through the Guidelines, to determine the opportunities available to you to make your teaching activities more visible, and to learn ways you can better document your teaching activities, for example through a teaching portfolio. Because faculty will be responsible for documenting any teaching activities beyond course evaluations, a teaching portfolio is valuable for that purpose.
Effective teaching is highly valued in the Cockrell School of Engineering, and I ask departmental Budget Councils to use these Guidelines as they make faculty salary advancement, promotion in rank, and tenure decisions.
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
COCKRELL SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
GUIDELINES FOR RECOGNIZING FACULTY TEACHING EFFECTIVENESS AND RELATED CONTRIBUTIONS
BACKGROUND
The University of Texas recognizes that excellent teaching at the undergraduate and graduate levels is a primary obligation of faculty to students and to the State of Texas. Indeed, Part I, Section 8, of the Regents Rules state that the duties of faculty include teaching in the classroom, laboratory, or seminar and studying, investigating, discovering, and creating. The University of Texas at Austin's Handbook of Operating Procedures (HOP) implements the Regents Rules by stating that recommendations for salary advancement, promotion in rank, and tenure shall be made on the basis of an annual evaluation of each faculty member in teaching, both undergraduate and graduate, and in research, creative activities, and other scholarly effort. The Regents Rules also point to other faculty obligations that pertain to support of the teaching effort such as performing curricular tasks auxiliary to teaching and research (e.g., serving on faculty committees, attending to administrative and disciplinary tasks, promoting diligence and honest work in the student body, and influencing beneficially students and citizens in various extracurricular ways). The HOP refers to these as: advising, counseling, and other student activities; administrative and committee service; public service to the nation, state, and community; and other evidence of merit or recognition, such as fellowships, grants, honors, and election to office in scholarly or professional organizations.
The Cockrell School of Engineering also recognizes its obligation to undergraduate and graduate teaching effectiveness, and it wishes to assure its faculty that teaching excellence and associated activities are a very important component in considerations for salary advancement, promotion in rank, and tenure. So that departmental Budget Councils understand clearly the importance to be placed on teaching in salary advancement, promotion in rank, and tenure, the following guidelines are given.
Methods for evaluating teaching are to be determined by each departmental Budget Council. These methods will be designed to recognize the importance of teaching to the department, the School, and The University; to consider the changing responsibilities of faculty over their career; and to acknowledge cases in which special assignments may cause one phase of a faculty member's responsibilities to be favored over others (e.g., research leave, administration, etc.). In evaluating faculty for teaching excellence, activities related to and in support of the teaching process are to be considered. Guidelines below provide more detail regarding activities that enhance teaching.
These guidelines are divided into two main sections: the teaching process; and support activities for teaching.
TEACHING PROCESS
For the teaching process, faculty are to be evaluated on their in-class and out-of-class teaching excellence and effectiveness. The extent to which and how well faculty include principles of university level teaching provide some measure of teaching effectiveness. These principles are those generally recognized as providing a basis for planning and teaching a university level course and are given in Davidson and Ambrose (1994) and summarized in Attachment I.
Faculty can provide evidence of these teaching activities through student evaluations, in-class peer observation and peer review of course materials, involvement in student society activities, and departmental social activities involving students. Summative Instructor and Course Evaluations given by The University's Measurement and Evaluation Center are an excellent source of information for teaching effectiveness evaluation. The scores on the Common Form for course organization, effective information communication, helping students think for themselves through reasoning and evaluation, overall instructor rating, and overall course rating provide insight to faculty performance in the classroom. Individual student comments on the parts of the course they liked and disliked are also very valuable. Peer observations are reviews of an instructor's performance through classroom observation and examination of instructional materials and course design. Guidelines for conducting peer observations are given in CTE (ca 1996).
Individual instruction of students at the undergraduate and graduate levels is also to be considered. Supervision of undergraduates in special project courses, research projects in which the student is engaged in critical thinking and reasoning, and similar endeavors is to be included. Supervision of graduate students in individual instruction, thesis and dissertation, and similar courses is also considered in evaluating teaching. Departments are encouraged to develop methods of evaluating effectiveness of teaching in individual instruction situations.
Innovative teaching methods such as active/collaborative teaching, use of teams, design projects, interdisciplinary teaching, team teaching, and other methods that actively engage students in the learning process are particularly valued over traditional lecture type instruction. Furthermore, activities on the part of the faculty to change their teaching style so it relates better to student learning styles are also highly valued. Incorporation of multimedia instructional materials, development of Web-assisted and Web-based courses, and participation in distributed education activities are all valuable efforts.
Participation in continuing education programs through the School's Continuing Engineering Studies (CES) is an effective and valuable way of meeting the educational needs of those beyond our campus boundaries. Organization of and/or participation in continuing education programs, developing materials for presentation in them, and working with CES to promote them are all valued. Being a participant in faculty development continuing education programs and being a participant in curriculum development continuing education programs are also valued. Organization of, development of materials for, and/or participation in Option III MS programs are also valued activities.
Faculty should develop a personal teaching portfolio to document their teaching activities. This makes information regarding the teaching process more available and understandable to a faculty evaluation committee. A Teaching Portfolio is a factual description of teaching accomplishments supported by relevant data and analyzed by the faculty member to show the thinking process behind the materials in the portfolio (CTE ca 1995). Specific suggestions on preparing portfolios are given in the CTE publication as well as in Seldin (1995) and others.
TEACHING SUPPORT
Faculty activities that support teaching and that are to be considered in evaluating faculty include:
Academic and Professional Advising
- Helping students assemble a coherent schedule of courses that satisfies all requirements.
- Helping students define career goals and examine alternatives in educational preparation for those goals, including selection of an undergraduate program and courses within that program.
Participation in Faculty Development Programs
- Participation in Center for Teaching Effectiveness Programs (e.g., Experienced Faculty Annual Conference).
- Attendance at short courses, seminars, and conferences on faculty development.
- Participation in professional society conference sessions, workshops, and seminars on faculty development.
Engineering Education Oriented Research
- Study and evaluation of alternative teaching methods, curriculum innovation, and similar activities.
Publications and Presentations
- Journal articles - externally reviewed publications on educational issues, e.g., articles in ASEE's Journal of Engineering Education and its Prism publication.
- Books - textbooks published and adopted at other universities.
- Educational Materials - materials developed through grants and contracts.
- Course Materials - course materials developed by faculty and used externally.
- Presentations at engineering education conferences (e.g., ASEE Annual Conference).
Professional Society Activities
- Leadership Positions - officer positions, committee chairs, and other responsible positions in engineering education oriented societies.
- Engineering Education - participation in professional society activities that promote engineering education, program evaluation, and ABET accreditation activities.
- Attendance at conferences on engineering education (e.g., ASEE Annual Conference).
Faculty are expected to provide evidence of these support activities in their résumés, annual reports, and teaching portfolios (if used). They should also include information on any teaching awards received at the department, School, University, Professional Society, or other level which indicate the effectiveness of their teaching as viewed by their students and/or peers.
References
Angelo, Thomas A. and K. Patricia Cross. 1993. Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, Second Edition. Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco.
Center for Teaching Effectiveness. ca 1995. "Preparing a Teaching Portfolio: A Guidebook." The University of Texas at Austin, MAI 2200.
Center for Teaching Effectiveness. ca 1996. "Preparing for Peer Observation: A Guidebook." The University of Texas at Austin, MAI 2200.
Davidson, Cliff I. and Susan A. Ambrose. 1994. The New Professors Handbook: A Guide to Teaching and Research in Engineering and Science. Anker Publishing Company, Inc., Bolton, MA.
Seldin, Peter. 1995. "The Teaching Portfolio." Prism, May/June.
ATTACHMENT I
EIGHT PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION
The guidelines that deal with the teaching process are organized around eight principles of undergraduate education (Davidson and Ambrose 1994), and they focus on activities in which faculty can engage to enhance their teaching.
1. Encourage active learning - students should: be prepared to work hard when they enter a classroom, take an active role in acquiring and maintaining new information during class, continue their interest doing homework assignments. Faculty can: ask frequent questions to arouse curiosity; present thought-provoking problems to encourage critical thinking; provide students with concrete, real-life situations to analyze; and use different teaching styles in their classes to engage students with different learning styles.
2. Design effective learning experiences for students - because most learning in a typical class takes place out of class, faculty should design activities that will help students learn after class hours, e.g., reading assignments, homework problems, group projects, laboratory assignments, and computer exercises.
3. Provide prompt feedback - because learning is an iterative process in which students apply a new concept, discover errors in their application, and try again, faculty should provide feedback to students as promptly as possible and that feedback should be corrective and supportive. A number of assessment techniques to determine student understanding of materials are available from Angelo and Cross (1993).
4. Emphasize the importance of time and effort spent learning - students must make effective use of time in and out of the classroom to be successful in learning a subject. Faculty should emphasize the importance of putting in that effort. Faculty can discuss with students effective study habits and time management, and they can plan their learning activities to permit the best use of their time and the student's time.
5. Encourage student-faculty contact - because interaction between faculty and student is at the very heart of the educational process, faculty should interact effectively with students in the classroom displaying enthusiasm, sensitivity, and command of the subject matter. They should also allow time for effective interaction outside of class during office hours, student societies and society functions, and departmental social activities.
6. Encourage cooperation among students - cooperative/collaborative learning is a powerful tool to enhance student mastery of a subject, and promoting interactions among students in a class can have a marked positive effect by enhancing student self-esteem, improving collaborative and teamwork skills, and developing personal responsibility. Faculty can encourage these interactions by organizing cooperative in-class exercises such as group discussions and group projects as well as activities outside of class.
7. Communicate high expectations - students respond positively to difficult classes through high ratings, high attendance, and high engagement. Teachers who demand a lot of their students have the most successful classes in terms of student enjoyment and learning. Faculty should set high but attainable goals, make expectations clear, and emphasize the intrinsic rewards of their hard efforts, i.e., mastery of material and success in later endeavors.
8. Respect diverse talents and ways of learning - because students bring unique sets of abilities, interests, and experiences (which translate into different ways of learning) to the classroom, faculty need to vary their teaching styles to match the students’ various learning styles and different personalities. Faculty should become familiar with the concepts of teaching styles and learning styles, and they should use a variety of teaching styles in the classroom to insure that all students are engaged in learning.