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[almond]

I'd like to collect some articles and studies about best practices for assessing instructors through student feedback and/or in-class observations.

This is for a new evaluation process being developed for a multi-section course taught primarily by part-timers. It is a discussion-based freshman seminar with no tests.

Our department used to rely on in-class observations with a narrative report shared with the faculty member. When this became too cumbersome, it was declared that we would do early semester student evaluations which would help us intervene with problem cases.

I'd like to know if there are better examples out there.  Any recommendations would be much appreciated.

[dale1]

Dear almond:

I suggest you look at some of the works by Trudy Banta, who is one of the main scholars in the area of program assessment.  There is an annual assessment conference in Indianapolis that her group hosts.  I'm sure you can find information about it at planning.iupui.edu.  It is in late October/early November this year.

Is this a first-year seminar, as in an "intro to university life" type class, or is it "Basketweaving 100" for majors and non-majors in the field? 

I don't know if an early semester evaluation/assessment (not necessarily the same thing) is very useful.  It all depends on (a) what you want to know and (b) how you go about getting at (a).  If the students are not in a place to give you (a), then it doesn't matter what (b) is and (c) when the data is collected.  This may be completely known to you, but I'm afraid there's not what I would call conceptual clarity in your post as to what you really want to know.

And if you survey or focus group or interrogate students individually, how will you be certain they are prepared to tell an outside authority figure they've never met that something's not right? And, how will they know if something isn't right? 

I would also say that an assessment should be holistic, in some sense.  So it's not only about the instructor. Might also be about the curriculum, the class space, or a number of other factors.

OK, mini-assessment rant complete.

[almond]

@dale1: Thanks this is helpful.

The course is part of the humanities core curriculum.

What we want to know: I think the department is trying to have "quality control" by making sure that people are teaching the course well. If they are not, they get some mentoring and if there is no improvement they are easily replaced.

I appreciate your comments, as it occurs to me that if our assessment of instructors is based on student evaluations, first-semester first-years may not be in the right place to provide this information especially after just 4 weeks of class (as we will be doing early evals).

However, there is a great deal of pressure on us to improve retention rates and please the students, so that may be another reason why we are shifting our focus.

I'm not sure of the logic, but this is useful stuff to ponder.

[dale1]

@almond:

I think you have hit on the very core problem, which is that we can ascertain satisfaction, but learning is another thing.  And we want students to perform (that is, put their knowledge/learning into action), and not everyone is so great at doing this.  So we can have Type I and Type II errors in this work all the time. 

My suggestion is to be very careful how your group defines quality, and that you use multiple measures to decide what counts as quality.  One might have dimensions such as "classroom management," "subject knowledge," "teaching ability," that sort of thing. 

I would not be comfortable at all asking first year students to evaluate an instructor based on only 4 weeks of class.  I realize you need a way to separate wheat from chaff, but what you want is convincing and credible evidence from sources that are reliable.  These students are not reliable.

Would be happy to talk with you via phone if you want some suggestions - we evaluate our majors each year on some standard things and it may be helpful to hear what we do. Just PM me for details.