Evaluating and improving teaching
Developing oneself as a teacher using innovative
teaching methods and strategies to establish
constructive and positive relations with all
students in guiding them in their development
of critical, analytical thinking and problem
solving abilities.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Rationale
We need to start from a position of knowing how well
we are teaching:
 Poor evaluation, whether of students or of staff, renders an
unfair judgement and fails to reveal shortcomings in
performance. Good evaluation on the other hand provides
decision makers with the information necessary for informed
choices and teachers with useful feedback for improvement.
Centre, 1993, p.1
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Evaluating teaching
Two broad purposes;
 Evaluation for improvement, i.e. Quality enhancement
leading to development and improvement of learning, teaching etc
 Evaluation for accountability i.e Quality assurance
regarding performance with respect to promotion, competence,
assurance for stakeholders etc
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Vocabulary
 Formative: Provides feedback which is used during the
[teaching] process for improvement. It is continuous,
diagnostic, remedial, and low stakes.
 Summative: ...used after [the teaching] process has been
completed. Grading and accountability are major outcomes.
It is terminal, finite, descriptive and high stakes.
After Scriven, 1967.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Activity 5
In small groups identify the university processes
involving decision-making about you that requires
evaluative information about your teaching
 What aspects of your teaching provides that information?
 What (if any) further information could/should be provided?
 How and by whom?
 How valid and reliable do you think the information is?
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Something to think about...
In what may as well be starkly labelled smug
satisfaction, an amazing 94% [of college
instructors] rate themselves above average teachers
and 68% rate themselves in the upper quartile of
teaching performers.
 K. Patricia Cross
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Activity 6: Universities are generally
interested in teaching...
 to ensure quality, effectiveness, and accountability
 to provide recognition and reward
 to bring about improvement.
 ...
 ...
Activity: In groups, identify the mechanisms by which these outcomes are
achieved at Bilkent.
For each mechanism reflect on how effectively it achieves its purpose
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
So the question for you as a teacher is...
 How do you know you are teaching well?
Or
 How well you are teaching?
And
 How might you improve?
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Activity 7
Rule a column down the middle of a piece of paper
 On the left hand side list things that you believe you have
done well when teaching
 On the right hand side for each indicator, map the evidence
you have that supports the point
 What evidence do you use to know things haven’t gone well?
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Some thoughts about evaluating
teaching...
When evaluations are used for promotion and tenure, the accepted rule
is that no single evaluation should be considered adequate for
decision making
 Theall and Franklin, p.94, 1991
Use multiple sources of data if you are serious about improving
teaching
 Cashin, p.93, 1992
It is wise to be circumspect about using student ratings to make
judgments on teaching quality and to recognise their complications
as well as their virtues.
 Ramsden, p.229, 1992
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
But there are options
We can change the focus from
 “what is the quality of your teaching”
To
 “how can we use evidence gathered from student feedback
and other forms of information to improve teaching?”
Berk (2005) has listed 12 ways as a starter to which I will add
two more; Small Group Instructional Diagnosis and
Classroom Assessment Techniques.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
12 sources of evidence(Berk, 2005)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
Student ratings
Peer ratings
Self-evaluation
Videos
Student interviews
Exit and Alumni ratings
Employer ratings
Administrator ratings
Teaching scholarship
Teaching awards
Learning outcome measures
Teaching portfolios
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Peer ratings
 Peer ratings of teaching performance and materials is the most
complementary source of evidence to student ratings. It covers those
aspects of teaching that students are not in a position to evaluate.
Student and peer ratings, viewed together, furnish a very
comprehensive picture of teaching effectiveness for teaching
improvement. Peer ratings should not be used for personnel decisions.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Self Evaluation
 Self-evaluation is an important source of evidence to consider in
formative and summative decisions. Faculty input on their own
teaching completes the triangulation of the three direct observation
sources of teaching performance: students, peers, and self.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Videos
 If faculty are really committed to improving their teaching, a video is
one of the best sources of evidence for formative decisions, interpreted
either alone or, preferably, with peer input. If the video is used in
confidence for this purpose, faculty should decide whether it should
be included in their self evaluation or portfolio as a “work sample” for
summative decisions.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Student ratings
 Student ratings is a necessary source of evidence of teaching
effectiveness for both formative and summative decisions, but not a
sufficient source for the latter. Considering all of the polemics over its
value, it is still an essential component of any faculty evaluation
system.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Student interviews
 The quality control circle is an excellent technique to provide
constant student feedback for teaching improvement.The group
interview as an independent evaluation can be very informative to
supplement student ratings. Exit interviews may be impractical to
conduct or redundant with exit ratings, described in the next section.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Exit and Alumni interviews
 Although exit and alumni ratings are similar to original student
ratings on the same scale, different scale items about the quality of
teaching, courses, curriculum admissions, and other topics can provide
new information. Alumni ratings should be considered as another
important source of evidence on teaching effectiveness.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Employer ratings
 Employer ratings provides an indirect source of evidence for program
evaluation decisions about teaching effectiveness and attainment of
program outcomes, especially for professional schools. Job performance
data may be linked to individual teaching performance, but on a very
limited basis.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Administrator ratings
 Administrator ratings is typically based on secondary sources, not
direct observation of teaching or any other areas of performance.This
source furnishes a perspective different from all other sources on merit
pay and promotion decisions.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Teaching scholarship
 Teaching scholarship is an important source of evidence to
supplement the three major direct observation sources. It can easily
discriminate the “teacher scholar” and very creative faculty from all
others for summative decisions.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Teaching Awards
 As a source of evidence of teaching effectiveness, at best, teaching
awards provide worthwhile information only on the nominees, and, at
worst, they supply inaccurate and unreliable feedback on questionable
nominees who may have appeared on ‘Law and Order’.The merits of
teaching awards should be evaluated in the context of an institution’s
network of incentives and rewards for teaching.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Learning outcome measures
 Learning outcome measures should be employed with extreme caution
as a source of evidence for faculty evaluation. It’s safer to use in
conjunction with the direct data sources described previously for
program improvement.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Teaching portfolio
 As a collection of many of the previous sources and them some, the
teaching portfolio should be reserved primarily for summative
decisions to present a comprehensive picture of teaching effectiveness
to complement the list of research publications.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Small Group Instructional Diagnosis
 Developed by Clark in 1979 Small Group Instructional Diagnosis
(SGID) is a form of classroom research which focuses on student
learning. It is a formative process enhancing learning and is a safe,
non-threatening and transparent mechanism liked by students and
staff. It is orally-based, involving concensus and involves little time
with a quick turn-around.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
Classroom Assessment Activities
(including fast feedback tools)
Classroom assessment techniques drawn from Angelo and Cross (1996).
These tools are Learner Centred,Teacher directed, Mutually
beneficial, Formative, Context-specific and Ongoing.
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
CAT examples
 The Minute Paper
 The Muddiest Point
 Directed paraphrasing
 Application cards
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]
The proof of the pudding...
 If we are teaching well, the obvious outcome would be in
student learning.
 One of the major challenges we face is that of effectively
‘measuring’ student learning. i.e. We are talking about
effective assessment!
Gordon Suddaby - [email protected]