The teaching reviews look great. One suggestion: when a reviewer is
coming into a faculty member's class, find out the objectives for that
particular class session, what preceded that class and what will follow.
Joanne
-----Original Message-----
From: Greenberg, James
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2003 1:47 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Teaching Breakfast Agenda for Meeting of April 3
Tbers,
Our next meeting is not until April 3 at 8 am in Morris Hall but I
wanted to get the agenda to you early so you could think it over. Back
in December of 2000, Dr. Jim Mills of our Geography Department presented
a proposal for Faculty Peer Teaching Reviews to the TB. This is an idea
the group has talked about a number of times over the years. Dr.
Rothenberg has offered to try and get something like what Jim proposed
started. We would like to talk this over at our next meeting. For
those of you that can't find your copy here it is:
Proposal Faculty Peer Teaching Reviews Submitted by Jim Mills,
Department of Geography to Members of the Teaching Breakfast Group,
December 2000.
Rationale and Description
This is a proposal to improve the quality of teaching at SUCO. The
intent is to provide a non-threatening mechanism for faculty members to
have other faculty members give them feedback and ideas on how to
improve their teaching. Despite our many statements regarding the
importance of quality instruction, we don't spend a lot of time talking
to each other about how to do this.
Specifically, faculty members rarely have the opportunity to receive
feedback on their teaching, especially on an informal basis. Teaching is
certainly a factor during term contract renewal, tenure, and promotion.
However, the basis of the review at those times is largely based on
teaching loads, student evaluations, and letters from other members of
their departments. Such information might serve its purposes. However,
it gives the instructor in the trenches little detailed information on
the quality of their teaching and not much in the way of constructive
ways to improve. Certainly, the process does little to create a shared
sense of mission and direct communication between faculty members.
This proposal might be a way to address this situation. We can develop a
faculty directed program that provides direct feedback to any faculty
member requesting input on teaching style, classroom performance,
syllabi, and other aspects of teaching. Faculty might welcome peers
reviews, especially if they knew that the comments and feedback would
not go into their files or any criticisms used against them in
considerations of merit, promotion, or tenure.
As a faculty, such a program might also give external reviewers,
administrators, and the general public a positive message. It might also
have the effect of keeping such matters under our own control, rather
than being mandated from Albany or elsewhere.
Organization
The program could be set up as follows:
1) A pool of faculty members interested in participating in such a
program is developed. It should be entirely voluntary. A coordinator
would be needed.
2) The process would be initiated by a request from an individual
faculty member for a review, submitted to the coordinator. The person
requesting a review would write a statement indicating what kind of
feedback is desired and might include the following information:
a) course syllabus (or syllabi) and any additional comments about
the syllabus or course for the review team
b) any difficulties or challenges being experienced in the course
or with teaching in general
c) areas that faculty member specifically wants to improve upon
d) whether or not they want faculty members from related
disciplines or withspecific expertise to conduct the review
3) The coordinator arranges for team of two to three members and a team
leader from the pool to respond to the request.
4) The team leader contacts the faculty member and they jointly decide
on a course of action. This could be as simple as one meeting, or might
involve in-class observation, video-taping, or other actions.
5) Once the review is completed, the team gives the faculty member
constructive feedback on ways to improve the course or teaching in
general. This feedback would be confidential, and members of the review
committee must agree that it will not be used in any formal evaluations.
The faculty member receiving the feedback, however, could choose to use
the review process to justify that they have taken the initiative to
improve their teaching when submitting their own faculty activity
reports, term contract renewals, merit requests, and tenure
applications.
6) The faculty member who receives the review should be asked to
participate as a reviewer for others.
Basic Principles of the Program (draft)
1) We are all good teachers. That is why we are here. The purpose of
the program is to make us better teachers, share information and
perspectives, and to promote a sense of collegiality.
2) Being a better teacher is an on-going process.
3) Everybody has different teaching styles. Anyone participating in the
program should be aware that one style might be good for one instructor,
and not so good for another. Nevertheless, we can all learn from one
another and perhaps there are methods,techniques and approaches that
would work well for us that we just were not aware of or haven't had the
time to work on. People doing reviews might well learn as much as people
requesting reviews. It might be a good idea to develop a set of readings
and other resources that faculty members could use.
4) We all have limited amounts of time. The process should be run
efficiently and not make inordinate demands on any participating
members.
5) Academic freedom is valued. We are not in the business of
determining course content.
**** End of Document.
Mr. James B. Greenberg
Director Teaching, Learning and Technology Center
Milne Library
SUNY College at Oneonta
Oneonta, New York 13820
email: [log in to unmask]
phone: 607-436-2701
"Ignorance is curable, stupidity lasts forever"
|
