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HOW TO ASSESS TEACHING
FYI
A useful tool in putting together a longer questionnaire is FYI (Feedback on Your Instruction), and it allows you to design a questionnaire for students to answer about your course. The advantages of FYI are the high degree of personalization and customization. You do it yourself, you can select questions from a database of proven questions to receive formative feedback. Some disadvantages to using FYI are student comfort and analysis. Student might not feel as comfortable if you are collecting the data yourself. You will also not have assistance in analyzing the data.SGID
SGIDs (Small Group Instructional Diagnosis) are focus groups conducted by FTAD consultants during class time and with the instructor absent. Using SGIDs to assess your teaching has many advantages. First, the instructional consultant will be present to help draw out the students’ comments for a richer source of data. They will also help you think about instructional issues in your classroom, helping you analyze and interpret the data. Because SGIDs are completely anonymous, students are usually more forthcoming with their feedback. SGIDs are also conducted as formative feedback. The fact that SGIDs take class time is the only disadvantage.Peer Review of Teaching
Other teaching professionals, such as your peers, professors or university teaching consultants can also provide you with evaluations of your teaching. Peers have the advantage of being aware of the pedagogical content knowledge to assess more accurately your teaching. However, disadvantages of peer review include limited observations (peer might only stop into one class), unclear validity (peer might not be trained to assess teaching), and biased assessments (process might be politically charged).SEI
SEI (Student Evaluation of Instruction) forms are numerical/quantitative ratings that are typically filled out at the end of the quarter. They have the advantage of being administered and analyzed externally. They also provide comparisons with other groups. However, SEI feedback can be nonspecific and confusing. Furthermore, results of SEIs seem very charged with political importance.CATs
CATs (Classroom Assessment Techniques) are typically very brief and focused questions or tasks related to the current content of your course. One clear advantage to these techniques is its support of ongoing feedback. CATs also help instructors better understand what students know and can make decisions about the amount of effort given from instructor and students.Questions Embedded in Coursework
These are the questions that are already a part of your quizzes, exams and assignments, so they take no extra time or effort. With every homework assignment and test, you have the opportunity to ask yourself whether students are capable of what they should be as a result of participating in your class up to that point. Designing test questions and assignments carefully enough so that the answers give you a clear picture of whether and how your students are meeting the course objectives requires that you think very carefully about what your students should be able to know and do as they proceed through the course. Good test and assignment design requires skill, and it can be challenging to understand why students don’t do well on exams and homework. more>>Classroom Observations & Videotaping
During classroom observations and videotaping, the consultant will meet with the instructor beforehand to determine any specific questions that will be the focus of the observation. For assessing presentation skills, FTAD staff might videotape part or all of the class. Classroom observations and videotaping document your strengths and weaknesses so you may refer back to them for assessment. However, these forms of assessment do have the disadvantage of disrupting your classroom. more>>>> previous page |
