Resources for Creating Assessment of Teaching Plans
The Provost’s Advisory Council on Instructional Excellence (ACIE) created a set of recommendations to expand and improve assessment of teaching effectiveness at Pitt, including the recommendation that academic units should create assessment of teaching plans. The recommendations were discussed by Council of Deans on Jan. 10, 2020 and endorsed on Jan. 30, 2020, discussed and shared with the Senate Educational Policies Committee on May 18, 2020, and were accepted by the Faculty Assembly at the Nov. 4, 2020 meeting. See the Provost’s Office Feb. 16, 2021 memo on assessment of teaching.
The Assessment of Teaching Plan Template provides an overview of information academic units can include in their assessment of teaching plans. Teaching Center staff can also provide you with resources, tools, feedback, and guidance tailored to the needs of your academic unit as you develop your plan.
Academic units should submit assessment of teaching plans to the Office of the Provost at provost@pitt.edu, with a copy to the Teaching Center at teaching@pitt.edu by April 30, 2021, with implementation target for fall 2021.
Tools and Resources for Creating an Assessment of Teaching Plan
The Assessment of Teaching Plan Template provides an overview of information academic units can include in their assessment of teaching plans. Additional readings are available on the Planning Systematic Assessment of Teaching page.
ACIE recommendations indicate that summative evaluations of teaching (e.g. annual review, promotion and tenure evaluations) should draw from multiple sources, listed below. Click on the links to access readings, resources, and examples of assessment of teaching methods.
- Peer review
- Student feedback
- Representative teaching materials and course artifacts
- Self-assessment
These measures can be evaluated holistically together in teaching portfolios.
Some University of Pittsburgh schools have provided Assessment of Teaching Plan Exemplars for review
Teaching Center staff are available to assist academic units in developing assessment of teaching plans and selecting and using tools. Contact us to schedule an assessment of teaching consultation.
Student Opinion of Teaching Survey Tools and Resources
ACIE recommendations also indicate that academic units, with support from the Provost’s Office, should raise faculty awareness of the effective use of student input and the potential biases in student opinion of teaching surveys, help faculty learn how to increase student response rates to surveys, and help faculty learn how to raise students’ awareness of the value of their opinions on course revision and improvement.
Teaching Center staff have created a Summary of Resources and Research on Using and Interpreting Teaching Surveys to assist academic units with communicating to faculty about teaching survey use, interpretation, and how bias may affect results.
Best Practices for Using Student Opinion of Teaching Surveys Video Series
See the Office of Measurement and Evaluation of Teaching (OMET) website for additional information. For individualized assistance, contact OMET.
- The Association of American Universities (AAU) has documented national assessment of teaching practices, particularly in STEM disciplines, for the past several years. This matrix lists summative assessment of teaching practices at AAU institutions (PDF – 268KB). These reports, Searching for Better Approaches: Effective Evaluation of Teaching and Learning in STEM (2014) (PDF – 803KB) and Aligning Practice to Policies: Changing the Culture to Recognize and Reward Teaching at Research Universities (2016) (PDF – 235 KB), detail the AAU’s efforts.
- TEval is a website documenting an educational research project by faculty from higher education institutions nation-wide to “advance educational practices by creating, aligning and sustaining effective evaluation strategies that promote and use evidence-based instructional strategies and [. . .] simultaneously seek to advance understanding of the institutional change process by studying the adoption and integration of new approaches to evaluating teaching.”
- The TEval resource list contains teaching effectiveness frameworks, tools for measurement and processes for change, talks, papers, and additional resources related to evaluation of teaching.
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This book presents creating a system for faculty evaluation as a step-by-step process, starting with using exemplars to define and describe measures of faculty work to piloting the system. Although it does not solely focus on teaching, the book includes information, samples, and resources on assessing teaching effectiveness.
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Benton and Young describe key measures to use in comprehensive evaluation of teaching: student feedback, instructor self-assessment, and review conducted by colleagues and administrators.
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Berk offers a concise overview and comparison of various methods of assessment of teaching.
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A seminal text on assessment of instructor teaching, research, and service, this book is a step-by-step guide and toolkit for constructing a system for assessing faculty and establishing a culture of continuous faculty development.
- NILOA’s Equity in Assessment Resources includes National Institute of Learning Outcomes Assessment occasional papers, action steps, case studies, and resources on conducting assessment equitably. Although these resources address student learning outcomes assessment, many of the ideas and actions outlined can be applied to assessment of teaching as well.
- Inclusified Teaching Evaluation, a Teaching in Higher Ed podcast featuring Viji Sathy and Kelly Hogan touches on topics related to the importance of holistic evaluation of teaching and how to evaluate teaching equitably and inclusively.
- The Inclusive Excellence Teaching and Service Evaluation toolkit was developed to help universities develop faculty evaluation tools and processes for assessing the AAC&U’s concept of inclusive excellence in teaching and service. The toolkit includes sample self and peer evaluation forms, policy language, and considerations for faculty at different ranks/appointments.