Mentoring and Teaching

Pat Rogers, Associate Vice President: Teaching and LearningWilfrid Laurier University

Annual Academic Administrators WorkshopBalsillie School of International AffairsAugust 19, 2013

AGENDA

Role of the chair in encouraging teaching improvement

Getting started

Characteristics of good educational practice

Formative versus summative evaluation

Teaching improvement options

What if it all goes wrong?

ROLE OF CHAIR

Assume leadership for creating a climate that values teaching

Communicate high expectations for teaching

Make teaching community property - encourage discussion about

teaching

Lead the development of and implement a plan for supporting new

colleagues

SETTING THE TONE

Begin with a conversation among colleagues

Develop program learning outcomes

Discuss values and teaching mission, based on student learning

outcomes

Develop criteria and standards for evaluating teaching performance,

tied to values and mission

CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD PRACTICE

Encourages contact between students and faculty

Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students

Encourages active learning

Gives prompt feedback

Emphasizes time on task

Communicates high expectations

Respects diverse talents and ways of learning

Chickering and Gamson, 1987

QUALITY DIMENSIONS OF HIGH IMPACT PRACTICES

Performance expectations set at appropriately high levels

Significant investment of time and effort by students over an extended period

of time

Interactions with faculty and peers about substantive matters

Experiences with diversity

Frequent, timely and constructive feedback

Periodic structured opportunities to reflect and integrate learning

Opportunities to discover relevance of learning through real-world applications

Public demonstration of competence

Kuh and O’Donnell, 2013

CHARACTERISTICS OF EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM PRACTICE

Preparation and organization

Content knowledge

Clarity

Rapport with students

Enthusiasm

Student engagement

Chism, 1999

FORMATIVE VERSUS SUMMATIVE EVALUATION

Evaluation for summative purposes focuses on information

needed to make personnel decisions (merit, tenure,

promotion, sabbatical)

Evaluation for formative purposes is designed to help faculty

improve their teaching

FORMATIVE VERSUS SUMMATIVE (CONT.)

Those who provide formative feedback should not also be summative

evaluators (Centra, 1993a)

For summative evaluation of teaching to be fair and reliable, data

needs to be gathered: from multiple sources (ex. students, peers, self, teaching

contributions beyond the classroom) by multiple methods (ex. teaching dossiers, review of course

materials, letters of evaluation, course evaluations, in-class review,)

at multiple points in time (ongoing formative feedback and scheduled summative feedback) (Chism, 1999).

TEACHING IMPROVEMENT- SELF

Classroom assessment (Angelo, 1993)

Course buddies

Student focus groups

Video-tape teaching/micro-teaching

TEACHING IMPROVEMENT - OTHERS

Observe a colleague

Review student ratings/course material with a colleague

Peer-pairing arrangement with a trusted colleague in the same or

other discipline

Teaching squares (see EDEV website)

Consultation with a TSS professional

Join a learning community

Course design institute

VALUE OF PEERS AS MENTORS

Act as a sounding board, help find direction, give insight, provide

constructive specific formative feedback, foster success

Open to different ideas (don’t know it all)

Subject matter expertise

Pedagogical strategies specific to the discipline