Module Components

• Overview
• Assignments

Topics

• Defining Teaching
• Evaluating Teaching

Nurs 791 - INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES AND ASSESSMENT

Module 1: The Teaching Process

Evaluating Teaching

The principles of 'good' teaching have been identified. Now the focus is on evaluating teaching. Before you begin thinking more critically about evaluating teaching, consider how you would evaluate teaching based on the work of Chickering & Gamson (1987) and Bain (2004).

The purpose for evaluating teaching must first be identified before the method(s) for evaluation can be chosen.  Is the evaluation being used to examine a new innovative teaching strategy? Is a faculty member’s teaching being evaluated for purpose of review or promotion?  Is the evaluation being used to make decisions about how course content will be delivered in the future?

Once the purpose has been established, it is important to consider the multiple perspectives needed to adequately evaluate teaching:

• Student feedback
• Peer feedback
• Self-reflection

Ideally, multiple perspectives are used to provide a comprehensive evaluation. Traditionally though, student/learner feedback through the lens of student evaluations of teaching (SET) has been heavily used to evaluate teaching. More recently, the emphasis on SETs has been challenged. A study by Esarey and Valdes (2020) identified the flaws in using SETs to measure teaching quality, and you can read some commentary on the study here. 

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has a Statement on Teaching Evaluation. The statement suggests that:

• institutions should make clear their expectations for teaching and provide support to meet the expectations;
• data collection traditionally used to evaluate teaching should identify characteristics of effective teaching and include other types of data helpful for review in the institution; and
• there should  be a clearly defined procedure for collecting data related to teaching.

A study by the AAUP’s Committee on Teaching, Research, and Publication (2014) gathered data about how colleges and universities evaluate teaching and then use the results.  The survey was completed by over 9,000 faculty members across the US.  The recommendations from this study highlight the need for a more critical look at the evaluation of teaching and can be found here. One important note about the findings is that if the AAUP’s Statement on Teaching Evaluation were followed more widely, many of the issues highlighted in the survey would likely not exist. 

The evaluation of teaching is multidimensional and evolving with technology and changes in higher education.