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Benefits of Early "Do-It-Yourself" Teaching Evaluation
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Benefits of Early "Do-It-Yourself" Teaching
Evaluation
Ever seen this in your classroom?
Dr. David McConnell MEAS
Dr. Meg BlanchardScience Ed
Dr. Chris Osburn MEAS
Why evaluate teaching?
Formative evaluations Provide feedback to improve
teaching effectiveness
Summative evaluation Provide information to assist
administration in making personnel decisions
Fact or FictionThe average student‘s attention span is
between 10 and 20 minutes
Fact(Penner, 1984). But the average college
class lasts for 60-90 minutes. Deal with drifting attention by a lively
lecturing style, and by breaking up longer lecture into 10-15 minute
chunks (Atherton, 2001).
Fact or Fiction?Active learning is almost impossible in
large lecture sections
FictionActive learning formats that work well
are cooperative group work (Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 1991), class-wide discussions (Gullette, 1992), and
interactive lectures (Mazur, 1993; Sokoloff, 1994; Van Heuvelen, 1991).
Fact or Fiction?Current trends point to more and
more large class sizes –small classes may be a thing of the past
Fact(McKinnon, 1998). You can exploit advantages of size and diversity with many activities that work
better with more students (Wolfman, 2002).
For example: You can do this with a large class http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=8O4A903Thlw
Pair Share: Confer with a neighbor for 1 minute to try to come up with something you can do or do better with a large class.
Fact or FictionLecture is as effective as other methods
in promoting independent thought or developing students' thinking skills
FictionHowever, research shows that lecturing is as effective as other
instructional methods in transmitting information (Bligh,
1971).
Fact or Fiction
Research has shown that large class sizes are not necessarily detrimental to
education.
FactIt is the quality of the instructon
that has the greater effect (Godfrey, 1998).
Students’ complaints about large class instruction
Lack of interaction
Little attention to personal needs
Little variation (Boring)
Afraid to ask a question
Education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire.
About student evaluations
Reliability, validity of student ratings is generally robust
Moderate to strong correlations between student ratings and student performance on final exams
Students well prepared to assess Clarity of presentation Instructor-student rapport Concern for students’ progress
Paulsen, M.B., New Directions for Institutional Research, 2002. #114: p. 5-18.
About student evaluations
Some Caveats Electives get higher ratings than required
courses Instructors in graduate and upper division
courses receive higher ratings than undergraduate and lower division courses
Students ratings are higher when Instructor is present Students know evaluations are used for
personal decisions They are not anonymous
Paulsen, M.B., New Directions for Institutional Research, 2002. #114: p. 5-18.
Instructor Behaviors and Student Evaluations
Student observers visited classrooms of 18 instructors with high teacher evaluation ratings, 18 with low ratings, and 18 with intermediate ratings.
All professors had been teaching for at least three years and had a class with at least 30 students.
All were in the social sciences and represented six departments.
Each teacher was observed at least three times by 6-8 different student observers using a 60-item Teacher Behavior Index (TBI).
Murray, H., Journal of Educational Psychology, 1983. 75(1): p. 138-149.
Instructor Behaviors and Student Evaluations
Which 6 behaviors showed significant differences between low- and high-rated instructors and which 6 behaviors were scored evenly between instructors with different ratings.
• Speaks expressively or emphatically
• Puts outline of lecture on board
• States teaching objectives
• Shows strong interest in subject
• Advises students about tests
• Moves about while lecturing
• Uses humor
• Smiles or laughs
• Uses audiovisual aids
• Uses graphs and diagrams
• Addresses students by name
• Asks questions of individual students
Murray, H., Journal of Educational Psychology, 1983. 75(1): p. 138-149.
How Can We Evaluate our Teaching?
• Self-review of actual teaching (video)
• Student review using Group Instructional Feedback Technique
• Peer review using Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol
The Blanchard Challenge:
Experience your class as your students do.
Videotape one class
Watch the tapeReflect:• How did it go?• What did I want my
students to learn?• What would I do
differently next time?
“Dr. McConnell, may I be excused? My brain is full.”
Pedagogical Discontentment
Recent study: 2-years with 28 middle school
mathematics and science teachers Teachers who were less satisfied with what they
were doing were 8 times more likely to change their practices to more reform-based (with PD) than teachers who were more satisfied with their teaching (Blanchard, Osborne, and Albert, 2010).
Watching a video of your teaching can help you to explore aspects of your teaching that you may find less satisfying.
Good Practices for Undergraduate Teaching
Don’t have a video camera handy? Try these:• Encourage student-faculty contact• Develop cooperation among students• Encourage active learning• Provide prompt feedback• Emphasize time on task• Communicate high expectations• Respect diverse talents and ways of learning
Chickering & Gamson, AAHE Bulletin, 1987, p. 3-7
Review handout checklists for 70 potential practices
How Can We Evaluate our Teaching?
• Self-review of actual teaching (video)
• Student review using Group Instructional Feedback Technique
• Peer review using Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol
What is working?What is going well in this class? What is helping you learn?
What isn't?Give an example of one or two things that make it more difficult for you to learn in this course.
What can be improved?What could use improvement in this course, and what specific suggestions would you make for change?
Angelo, T. A. & Cross, K. P. 1993. Classroom Assessment Techniques: Jossey-Bass.)
Group Instructional Feedback Technique
Case Study
Dr. Christopher Osburn, MEAS
Group Instructional Feedback Technique
How Can We Evaluate our Teaching?
• Self-review of actual teaching (video)
• Student review using Group Instructional Feedback Technique
• Peer review using Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol
About peer evaluations
Reliability, validity of peer evaluations not as well established as student evaluations
Peers may be better than students in evaluating Content mastery Course design Curriculum development
Paulsen, M.B., New Directions for Institutional Research, 2002. #114: p. 5-18.
Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol RTOP: Cliffs Notes Version
• Range from 0 “Never Occurred” to 5 “Very descriptive”
• Use to see how teacher (0-2) to Learner (3-5) centered a lesson is across 25 items on 5 subscales
• Score ranges form 0 – 100, with less than 50 being more traditional and above 50 is more reform-based
• Descriptive, not judgmental—if it occurred, you code it, if not, you don’t.
http://physicsed.buffalostate.edu/AZTEC/RTOP/RTOP_full/
RTOP Data
RTOP range, 20s-70s for Physical Sciences classes
Higher RTOP scores correlate with higher learning gains
RTOP Data
Higher RTOP scores correlate with higher learning gains
RTOP scores range from high teens to 80s in introductory geology classes
Who determines the direction of the lesson, the teacher or the student?
How strong is teacher’s content knowledge, connections to real world & conceptual understanding?
How much ownership do students take over representing, testing, and reflecting on ideas?
How much do students communicate with the teacher, and each other and what is the quality of those communications?
How much listening and support and patience does the teacher have for the students’ ideas?
Lesson Design
Content Knowledge
Procedural Knowledge
Communicative Interactions
Student/Teacher Relationships
Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol RTOP: 5 Subscales
Group RTOP Activity
Pick an RTOP Subscale
Your Task: Review the 5 items in the subscale and discuss in your group:
1) Which item(s) do you most want to reform?
2) How might you do that (strategies)?
3) Present to the whole groupReview RTOP rubric handout for tips on what to look
for when using scoring scales
Benefits of Peer/Self-Evaluation
√ Help with end-of-semester evaluations
√ Part of faculty development efforts
√ Personal reflection on teaching and
learning
√ Increase faculty credentials for internal
and external teaching awards
√ Data for use in program review and
accreditation
√ More enjoyment
√ More student learning
Fact or Fiction?
When students have copies of the lecture notes or a text they are less likely to come to a traditional lecture class
FactA significant percentage of students
prefer reading notes rather than attending classes that offer little or
no interaction (Edlich 1993; Sullivan & McIntosh, 2002).