Lefton Learning Community

Evaluating Your Teaching

The perfunctory ritual of last-session student evaluations is often the only feedback that college teachers receive on the effectiveness of a semesters worth of instruction. Because end of semester evaluations are of no use in helping you rethink your teaching strategies in time to correct mistakes, educational researchers have suggested other ways that you can obtain regular and systematic feedback on your classroom teaching.

The most obvious and venerable source of feedback is the classroom examination. Reviewing exams to look for patterns of correct and incorrect answers is one way to determine whether the majority of class members are grasping essential course content.

Another source of feedback is student behavior. You should be on the alert for blank stares, restless shifting, whispered asides, and other indications that students are out of touch with what is going on in class.

Individual conferences with students outside of class may provide you some sense of class problems that you can use as cues for improvement.

Minute Papers (Cross, 1989) are another device to obtain frequent feedback on teaching. Minute papers ask students to spend the last few minutes of class answering the following two questions:

What was the most important thing you learned today?
What questions are uppermost in your mind as we conclude this class session?

Users report that the first time minute papers are employed, some students may find it difficult to articulate anything of importance that they learned in the class session. But the use of such a device carries an important pedagogical message. Students are on notice that they are expected to be able to synthesize and articulate their learning; and they are expected to be active learners, raising questions, and thinking about implications.

Another way for you to evaluate your own teaching is to enlist the help of colleagues. Work out a system with other professors in your department or college whereby you occasionally observe each others classes and make suggestions for improvement.

The purpose of teaching evaluation, whether it is performed by you, your students, your fellow teachers, or your supervisors is to provide information that will help you reduce the gap between your teaching and students' learning. Sometimes the information that you receive will require that you try out a different teaching style, experiment with new techniques, or seek help from other faculty.

Wilbert McKeachie (1986) maintains that successful teaching does not depend upon adopting a particular teaching method or having a particular type of per-sonality. He goes on: "Teachers can improve; they don't need psychotherapy; and not everyone can use the same methods equally successfully" (p. 266). By being a student of your own teaching effectiveness, you can determine the strategies that work best for you and result in the greatest degree of student learning.

References:
Cross, K.P. (1989, October 8). Making teaching more effective. Keynote address at Freshman Year Experience Conference, Denver, Colorado.

McKeachie, W.J. (1986). Teaching tips: A guidebook for the beginning college teacher. Lexington, MA: Heath.

"All college teachers should evaluate themselves to gain insight into their own strengths and weaknesses. In addition to its value in improving teaching, self-evaluation is a powerful tool for personal development. Teachers who pursue self-evaluation are usually highly motivated to improve themselves."