Evaluating
Teaching Quality At a University Level
This talk was prepared and delivered for Strategic Planning Listening
Session for BU Faculty on 2/13/19. It was also sent as a feedback to the Task
Force on Evaluating Teaching. Below, purple color represents statements which
have been deliberately omitted as a part of the talk, the blue color represents
the statements added during the Session.
Hello,
I would like to use 4 minutes to address “The
Report
on The
Task Force on Evaluating Teaching”.
It is directly related to
the strategic development of the university.
In the U.S. I’ve been teaching elementary physics
since 2007.
I am very good at that.
My
students write, quote: "I hated physics before
taking this course, and now after taking both 105 and 106 with Mr. V, I
actually really enjoy it. He is one of the best teachers I've ever had. Thank
you"
or
“Best physics professor here, only one who cares if students are
learning the material. Proves you don’t need a PhD in physics to teach this
class. PhD in education is much more effective.”
Since 2007 I’ve collected
about 10
pages of this stuff.
One of the reasons I am good at teaching
is that for a long time I already have been following recommendations presented
in the report.
For example, I
have developed my own survey that includes
quantitative and qualitative elements, which I administer online.
Every midterm and the final
exams have a feedback page, so I collect feedback twice during the semester and
then after the final.
On the first day of the
class, I tell me students everything about me, including my
evaluations.
So, I am a living proof that the
recommendations will work.
But based on my professional experience, I
would recommend to look further. I have five specific suggestions.
1.
On page 23 there is a quote
from Ronald Berk “There is no known objective methods for measuring teaching
performance”.
That was written twelve
years ago.
Nowadays there are, or at
least in the development, objective methods for measuring teaching performance.
Those methods did not find a
reflection in the report.
The report offers assessing only how does
teaching practice appear, using the external features of teaching practice
(like observations, portfolios),
It is like visiting a theater and then
reflecting on how good the performance was by judging the clothes of the
actors, but ignoring what feelings one experienced.
The practice of teaching results in
specific changes called learning outcomes represented in skills and knowledge
or abilities and competencies students gain by the end of learning.
And for those outcomes there
are objective methods for their
measuring, at least in physics, math, chemistry.
But the report lacks any specification of
such outcomes.
I believe that
strategically, such learning outcomes have to become one of the criteria of the
quality of teaching.
2.
The report does not mention what should be
done if the quality of teaching has found unsatisfactory. And where is that cutoff between “satisfactory” and not?
3.
“Proposed Feedback Form” on page 17 has
questions which in the current form will not be helpful.
For example, an answer to question “How
much did you learn” heavily depends on the initial background of a student.
The percentage of the attended class
meetings does not reflect option of using online resources.
“What skills did you learn?” and “How well
did you achieve learning goals” are basically same questions, and an average
person would just repeat the list from the syllabus.
4.
Peer review section needs to include
protocols for conducting an
observation, describing and assessing activities of the instructor and the
students.
5.
Finally, we live in the age of the big data. Every day some media outlet
has a story about some new development in this area. The Report has no
mentioning of this at all.
The proposed a university-wide unification
of the student feedback alone will
allow building a university-wide database. If
this option is not a part of a Strategic Planning, this whole report is
basically just a puff of smoke.
6. I do not feel that high quality
teaching is one of the core values of the university.
7. University should intensify
its effort for reaching out to low-income communities. It needs to replace
fragmented events by a systematic learning engagement with the schools in those
communities, maybe via its cultural centers like church.
8. University needs to establish
a system to gauge in “real time” the mood in a student body. Having feedback
about a specific course is not enough. University needs to collect and analyze
feedback about various aspects of student life.
9. University needs to establish
a system to gauge regularly how do BU graduates assess the education they get
in university. Some time after the graduation a group from alumni may be surveyed
on what aspects of BU education helped them, and what did not help them to succeed,
what corrections they would suggest.
The systems for gauging and surveying
should become a natural part of the general big data approach for collecting
and analyzing information on the functioning of the university.
Thank you
Dr. Valentin Voroshilov
02/13/2019
Appendix: A
question to Dr. Bestavros.
In
your talk, you described many applications of data science.
However,
not a single project was in a field of educational
data
mining
in general, and BU educational data in particular.
Despite
the fact that the opportunities are ample.
For
example, three years ago I offered a specific project in that area and you were
one of the judges who declined it.
A
more recent example.
The
report of the taskforce on quality of teaching recommends a
unification
across the university of the format for student
evaluations
and moving the evaluations online. This alone would produce a
vast stream of data.
But
by some reason, BU data and IT entities, including BU Digital Initiative and
Hariri Institute are not interested
in
any
internal usage of the data analytics.
My
question is what is that specific logical element in your reasoning which prevents
you from applying to BU education the same
ideas and approaches you advocate for everything else?
Older articles related to
higher education (more at www.Cognisity.How):
How I flipped my class without even knowing (works
for everyone!)
