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[oversensitive]

I am tt at a small SLAC that prides itself on good teaching.  But, what I find weird is that campus does not have any system of class observation whatsoever:  no one sits in on my classes and watches me teach and then offers feedback, and--as I learned very quickly after arriving--I am not to sit in on the classes of my colleagues.  It is just not done.  Indeed, a desire to do so is seen in some ways as being impolite, as "eavesdropping" and/or as impinging on a collegaue's academic freedom (because, many feel, it prevents them to doing what they want free from interference, although I fail to see this argument). 

I find this strange.  After all, how is one supposed to become a better teacher if no one observes you and you cannot observe anyone.  How are junior faculty supposed to improve in a vacuum?

I suppose that we could use our campus conference travel money to attend a symposium on teaching, but no one does.  After all, we also need to be presenting papers and doing scholarship.

While I did a great deal of teaching as a grad student and am a very solid instructor with really good student evals so far, I feel frustrated that my teaching has hit a "plateau."  I miss swapping assignments with other colleagues, having roundtable discussions where we shared our best (and worst) moments in the classroom, and witnessing different teaching styles and approaches like in grad school.  In short, I miss learning about pedagogy and classroom instruction, and the chance to grow and develop.

Am I alone in thinking that the situation on my campus is strange? 

Am I alone is wanting more opportunities for professional development?  To learn from those around me?

[oversensitive]

Oh, and I should have also mentioned that team teaching is indirectly discouraged here:  if you do so, each faculty member gets only 1.5 credit hours for the 3 credit hour course.  So, in order to maintain your full time status, you must make up the extra credit hours. 

Since you are not permitted to team teach more than on class a semester--and since I am in a humanities field where there are no 1 credit or 2 credit hour labs--this means teaching an entire extra class.  So, the end result is that you end up teaching 1.5 credit hours extra--for no additional pay--if you want to team teach.  Hence, no one does it.

[offthemarket]

I thoroughly commiserate and understand.  It is weird.  I recently left a SLAC-like place like you described.  It's a school that has a reputation as a 'teaching institution' and there is heavy and routine lip service to the promotion of teaching excellence.

But it was anathema to actually discuss the scholarship of teaching, consider novel pedagogical methods, and the only way that faculty members seriously evaluated teaching effectiveness was to ask themselves, "so am I a good teacher?"

There was a system in place wherein faculty are supposed to be observed in class, and I asked my colleagues all the time to visit my classes, but nobody ever really dropped by.  When someone did visit for half an hour, they didn't give me any notes or comments and said everything was fine.

Now, I'm very pleased to arrive at a place where instructors really do take care to know not just their discipline, but also how to teach it.  The funny thing is that my new job where teaching is taken seriously, has higher research expectations and a more stimulating research environment.

If this is really important to you, you might find how happy you could be if you moved to a new place.  If not possible, then get tenure by acting like everyone else and then work to promote the faculty development center (if it exists, or make one if it doesn't).

[dismal_sci]

I would think it is pretty common to get half credit for team teaching a course with one other person.  It would be great if you got more than that, but I am under the impression that half credit is the norm based on my sample of n=2 universities.

[csguy]

I would think it is pretty common to get half credit for team teaching a course with one other person.  It would be great if you got more than that, but I am under the impression that half credit is the norm based on my sample of n=2 universities.

We tried team teaching where faculty got full credit for awhile. It tends to tie up a lot of faculty time (we don't have surplus faculty).