Commons

The SOU Faculty Senate recently commissioned a task force on student evaluations. Like many schools, SOU is grappling with the difficulty in relying on student evaluations as a proxy for teaching effectiveness, given that they are prone to bias for gender and race, among other problems. The UK Royal Academy of Engineering, commissioned this work to create a more valid framework for evaluating teaching achievement based on spheres of influence, promotion criteria and forms of evidence. Student evaluations are only one of many acceptable forms of evidence; more significant are self-assessment, professional activities, measures of student learning and peer evaluation. Direct link to the Teaching Framework.

Keeping with the theme of student evaluations, here is a quick and easy way to gauge the student experience during a course. This is a lightweight option to reading open-ended responses to questions like “What did you like this week?” or giving lengthy end-of-course questionnaires. Here are five questions students could respond via a 5-point Likert scale: I was challenged intellectually by the content and activities this week. I had plenty of support from the professor, my classmates, and the course tools as I worked this week. I am closer to mastering the ideas of the course now than I was at the beginning of the week. I made progress in learning this week because of my own efforts and choices. I felt I was part of a community of learners this week The first two questions regarding challenge and support can be mapped on to the 2x2 matrix in the graphic to get a sense of who might need an intervention. The final three regards intrinsic motivation as describe