I haven't seen any change in student participation in the process at KU. Average response rates on student surveys of teaching range between 50% and 60%. That's one reason we see a need to bring in additional evidence to the evaluation process. I recently led a committee that looked into ways to improve response rates in student surveys. (See 4 ways to increase participation in student surveys of teaching.) One thing we found was that instructors who reach out to students and explain the importance of their feedback generally have higher response rates. Given that, I could see that instructors who use the TEval system might be more engaged in the evaluation process and thus solicit more responses from students.

The TEval system is intended to create a holistic evaluation for promotion and tenure or for annual review. Some aspects could certainly be used during a semester or for an individual course, but it was designed for evaluating a body of work. It is really up to instructors to conduct their own formative evaluations at midterm or at other points in the class. Those formative evaluations would be good evidence to use in the TEval system to show how an instructor was working to improve a class.      

Thank you for sharing the article. I see you also acknowledge the use of mid-term evaluations to increase student feedback but they can also impact at least two of the areas on the rubric - reflection & mentoring. I really like the categories the rubric address but wonder if a resource list will be provided to facilitate discussion around the 7 areas (or designated ares depending on the program) particularly when it comes to climate, mentoring, and reflection. 

That is an excellent idea!  Thank you for that, Danielle.

Sure thing. You will find a link to the KU version of the rubric here (it's under Benchmarks Project, which is what we call it at KU), or download a PDF of the rubric directly here.

Thanks much! This is going to be really helpful.

Thank you, Sehoya! We have been sharing information about the project at various conferences, and we have some articles in the works.

Thank you, Ellis.  We'd love to get feedback about how you see this project being applied in various academic settings and how it could be helpful. 

Thank you for your comments, Phillip.  Because our project is examining how different departments implement a rubric of this type into their teaching evaluation practices, there are different models emerging for specific ways of collecting, examining and using feedback.  Several departments are intending to use the rubric to look for change, or growth, in a faculty member's teaching.  In that case, comparisons across semesters will be an integral part of the process.  Numerous departments see this rubric playing a role in the formative feedback for faculty, and opportunities for improvement through various avenues of faculty development (some internal to the department, some more campus-based) will be part of that formative development.  The frequency with which different departments will carry out an evaluation of faculty teaching, again, will vary by department.  Some departments are exploring an every-other-year model for their pre-tenure faculty and/or a every-third-year model for some of their faculty.  Our project is not yet at the point where any of the universities involved have standardized or required the rubric process.  If and when that takes place, we anticipate that the experiences of these "pilot" departments will be considered when making decisions on the types of parameters that you're asking about.  Happy to provide more details if my answer did not fully address your questions.  Gabriela

Thank you for your comments and questions, Marcelo.  We have not had anyone bring up concerns about apparent contradictions in the rubric.  If those exist, we very much want to know about it/them.  Can you give me some specifics?

The challenges and lessons to date (20 months into the project) revolve primarily around the workload that this type of holistic assessment entails, compared to a student survey.  The departments and institutions that are participating feel that the shift in workload is balanced by having a more reliable and valid sense of faculty teaching.  However, our piloting process is working to find that "sweet spot" where the effort is matched with the value gained, which means identifying procedures/practices that departments can use to integrate this into faculty workloads.

The extent to which results of a TEval rubric-based evaluation would be made public is ultimately up to the institution/departments in which it is used.  At this time, the rubric is intended for departments to evaluate faculty members, particularly for formative development, annual reviews and/or promotion reviews.  We did not *intent* for this information to be made publicly available, in the same way that those types of faculty reviews are generally not made available.  But if an institution determines that they would use it that way - particularly if it is an institution with a culture of making student survey results publicly available - then that would be their prerogative.  We are simply developing and assessing a framework. 

Gabriela

Hello Matt.  I completely agree with you.  This approach can be applied in a variety of institution types, and across a broad array of disciplines.  We can only report the work through the lens of public R-1's because that is the classification of our three pilot sites.  Our conference presentations through AAC&U are geared at any institutions of higher education who would be interested, and there will be additional public convenings specifically about this topic in the coming year.  (We do not have all the details yet.)

Thank you for your comments.  Gabriela

Sorry to be slow to the party here -- but great to see (and hear from you Barbara)... I'd be very pleased to connect with our CITL colleagues next time I'm out !