A Systematic Approach to Documenting Teaching Effectiveness

Abstract

Faculty in higher education are well-versed in their two primary job responsibilities of teaching and research with service often a distant third. Although the evaluation of research is reflected in one's publication record, the evaluation of teaching is often more haphazard and unreliable. While many departments rely solely on student evaluations of teaching and/or peer evaluations, there are a multitude of other evaluation tools that can be utilized in the development of a well-rounded teaching portfolio. Teaching evaluations are often used for personnel decisions ranging from promotion and tenure to merit increases. Therefore, it is important for a faculty member to take a proactive stance and develop a systematic and comprehensive evaluation plan that will serve to document his or her teaching abilities in a valid and reliable manner. The purpose of this paper is to identify several tools useful in documenting teaching effectiveness and present a way to build the case for teaching competence.

Keywords:

• teaching effectiveness
• evaluation