Jared Del Rosso, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology & Criminology, Task Force Member
Leslie Cramblet Alvarez, Director of the Office of Teaching and Learning, Task Force Member
The Teaching Excellence Task Force is on hiatus for the summer and will continue their work in the fall. Even so, we want to share with the DU community some of the resources that we’ve encountered over the past several months. Of note is a chapter, “A Department-Level Cultural Change Project: Transforming the Evaluation of Teaching,” from the Education – Multidimensional Evaluation of Teaching (TEval) project. Written by Noah Finklestein (CU-Boulder), Andrea Follmer Greenhoot (University of Kansas), Gabriela Weaver (UMass-Amherst), and Ann E. Austin (Michigan State University), the chapter details TEval’s framework for evaluating teaching. The framework incorporates seven dimensions of teaching and multiple forms of evidence. It’s intended to guide unit-level conversations about evaluating teaching. Ultimately, units are empowered to adapt the framework in ways that support their unique teaching priorities and disciplinary methods. Members of the DU community who attended the May 12 Think and Drink (#7), hosted by Dr. Jared Del Rosso (Associate Professor, Department of Sociology & Criminology), had an opportunity to discuss this article.
A second resource comes from the May 14 Think and Drink (#8), hosted by Dr. Barbekka Hurt (Teaching Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences). “Survey of 12 Strategies to Measure Teaching Effectiveness,” written by Ronald A. Berk (Johns Hopkins University), provides exactly what its title promises – a survey of twelve strategies to evaluate teaching. If you’re wondering what other methods are out there, beyond the familiar student evaluation of a course, this article is a wonderful departure point for your learning. It surveys a range of strategies, including peer reviews, learning outcome measures, teaching portfolios, and self-evaluation, among others.
We look forward to starting our work back up in the fall and engaging with the DU community. Thank you to all who attended the spring events related to this work.