Hi Jim,
I'm a little confused (for me, probably a good situation) - am I right that we will meet on the third to discuss faculty peer reviews and again on the tenth to hear the "best practices" discussion. Or, has the discussion for the third been postponed?
Bob
-----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"
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