A Comprehensive Critique Of Student Evaluation Of Teaching

This thought-provoking volume offers comprehensive analysis of contemporary research and literature on student evaluation of teaching (SET) in Higher Education. In evaluating data from fields including education, psychology, engineering, science, and business, this volume critically engages with the assumption that SET is a reliable and valid measure of effective teaching. Clayson navigates a range of cultural, social, and era-related factors including gender, grades, personality, student honesty, and halo effects to consider how these may impact on the accuracy and impartiality of student evaluations. Ultimately, he posits a “popularity hypothesis”, asserting that above all, SET measures instructor likability. While controversial, the hypothesis powerfully and persuasively draws on extensive and divergent literature to offer new and salient insights regarding the growing and potentially misleading phenomenon of SET. This topical and transdisciplinary book will be of great interest to researchers, faculty, and administrators in the fields of higher education management, administration, teaching and learning.

Create a more effective system for evaluating online faculty Evaluating Online Teaching is the first comprehensive book to outline strategies for effectively measuring the quality of online teaching, providing the tools and guidance that faculty members and administrators need. The authors address challenges that colleges and universities face in creating effective online teacher evaluations, including organizational structure, institutional governance, faculty and administrator attitudes, and possible budget constraints. Through the integration of case studies and theory, the text provides practical solutions geared to address challenges and foster effective, efficient evaluations of online teaching. Readers gain access to rubrics, forms, and worksheets that they can customize to fit the needs of their unique institutions. Evaluation methods designed for face-to-face classrooms, from student surveys to administrative observations, are often applied to the online teaching environment, leaving reviewers and instructors with an ill-fitted and incomplete analysis. Evaluating Online Teaching shows how strategies for evaluating online teaching differ from those used in traditional classrooms and vary as a function of the nature, purpose, and focus of the evaluation. This book guides faculty members and administrators in crafting an evaluation process specifically suited to online teaching and learning, for more accurate feedback and better results. Readers will: Learn how to evaluate online teaching performance Examine best practices for student ratings of online teaching Discover methods and tools for gathering informal feedback Understand the online teaching evaluation life cycle The book concludes with an examination of strategies for fostering change across campus, as well as structures for creating a climate of assessment that includes online teaching as a component. Evaluating Online Teaching helps institutions rethink the evaluation process for online teaching, with the end goal of improving teaching and learning, student success, and institutional results.

Written by experts in teaching and administration, this guide offers practical, research-based information for faculty members and administrators in search of new approaches for assessing and improving faculty potential. By recognizing that faculty evaluation can be a difficult, time-consuming, and costly process, the authors of Evaluating Faculty Performance have distilled existing evaluation practices into useful recommendations for strengthening the overall system. Offering numerous suggestions for improving evaluation methods, assessing program weaknesses, and avoiding common problems, the book Examines compelling reasons for developing effective and systematic faculty assessment processes Discusses how to create a climate for positive change by favoring performance counseling over performance evaluation Identifies the essential elements and best practices in assessment, while also revealing what not to do in evaluating performance Explains the value of the professional portfolio in assessment teaching, and offers advice on how to complete a portfolio Outlines key issues, dangers, and benchmarks for success in straightforward language Included are field-tested forms and checklists that can be used to measure faculty performance in teaching, research, and service. The suggestions for improving faculty assessment are clear and practicable—sensible advice for strengthening a process that is of increasing importance in higher education.

This comprehensive framework was created by the Joint Committee on Standards for Educational Evaluation (http://jc.wmich.edu//) to guide educators in designing and assessing student appraisals that are fair, useful, feasible, and accurate. Carefully written to ensure their relevance at the classroom level, these Standards were developed with assistance from members of sixteen professional societies: - American Association of School Administrators - American Counseling Association - American Educational Research Association - American Evaluation Association - American Psychological Association - Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development - Canadian Evaluation Society - Canadian Society for the Study of Education - Consortium for Research on Educational Accountability and Teacher Evaluation - Council of Chief State School Officers - National Association of Elementary School Principals - National Association of Secondary School Principals - National Council on Measurement in Education - National Education Association - National Legislative Program Evaluation Society - National School Boards Association.

This book provides a comprehensive and engaging analysis of the purpose and function of student evaluation in higher education. It explores its foundations and the emerging functions, as well as its future potential to improve the quality of university teaching and student learning. The book systematically assesses the core assumptions underpinning the design of student evaluation models as a tool to improve the quality of teaching. It also analyses the emerging influence of student opinion as a key metric and a powerful proxy for assuring the quality of teachers, teaching and courses in universities. Using the voices of teachers in the day-to-day practices of higher education, the book also explores the actual perceptions held by academics about student evaluation. It offers the first real attempt to critically analyse the developing influence of student evaluation on contemporary approaches to academic teaching. Using a practice-based perspective and the powerful explanatory potential of cultural historical activity theory (CHAT), the implications of the changing focus in the use of the student voice - from development to measurement - are systematically explored and assessed. Importantly, using the evidence provided by a unique series of practice-based case studies, the book also offers powerful new insights into how the student voice can be reconceptualised to more effectively improve the quality of teaching, curriculum and assessment. Based on this empirical analysis, a series of practical strategies are proposed to enhance the work of student evaluation in the future university to drive pedagogical innovation. This unique volume provides those interested in student evaluation with a more complex understanding of the development, contemporary function and future potential of the student voice. It also demonstrates how the student voice - in combination with professional dialogue - can be used to encourage more powerful and substantial forms of pedagogical improvement and academic development in higher education environments.

This handbook advocates a new approach to teacher evaluation as a cooperative effort undertaken by a group of professionals. Part 1 describes the need for changed teacher evaluation, and part 2 outlines ways to use multiple data sources, including student and parent reports, peer review of materials, student achievement results, teacher tests, documentation of professional activity, systematic observation, and administrator reports, as well as discussions of the teacher as curriculum designer and data sources to avoid. Part 3 describes tools for improved teacher evaluation, and the evaluation of other educators is outlined in part 4. School district responsibilities and activities are described in part 5. This edition adds new chapters on: (1) the role of the principal in changed teacher evaluation; (2) how districts can transform current practice; (3) use of national standards; (4) developments in using student achievement data; and (5) the development of sociologically sophisticated teacher evaluation systems. Emphasis is placed on the use of the Internet as a resource and other new resources for local development. A list of legal cases cited is included. (Contains 343 references.) (SLD)

Even on good days, teaching is a challenging profession. One way to make the job of college instructors easier, however, is to know more about the ways students learn. How Humans Learn aims to do just that by peering behind the curtain and surveying research in fields as diverse as developmental psychology, anthropology, and cognitive neuroscience for insight into the science behind learning. The result is a story that ranges from investigations of the evolutionary record to studies of infants discovering the world for the first time, and from a look into how our brains respond to fear to a reckoning with the importance of gestures and language. Joshua R. Eyler identifies five broad themes running through recent scientific inquiry--curiosity, sociality, emotion, authenticity, and failure--devoting a chapter to each and providing practical takeaways for busy teachers. He also interviews and observes college instructors across the country, placing theoretical insight in dialogue with classroom experience.

Presumed Incompetent is a pathbreaking account of the intersecting roles of race, gender, and class in the working lives of women faculty of color. Through personal narratives and qualitative empirical studies, more than 40 authors expose the daunting challenges faced by academic women of color as they navigate the often hostile terrain of higher education, including hiring, promotion, tenure, and relations with students, colleagues, and administrators. The narratives are filled with wit, wisdom, and concrete recommendations, and provide a window into the struggles of professional women in a racially stratified but increasingly multicultural America.