Exhibit 6 - Evaluation of Faculty Instruction
Back to Exhibit 6III. Evaluation of Faculty Instruction
- being well prepared for class
- motivating students
- effective communication skills
- demonstrating comprehensive knowledge
- treating students with respect
- organized presentation
Evaluation of faculty instruction is based upon following premises:
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a. Effective teaching skills can be defined. Characteristics of good teaching that can be evaluated are reasonably consistent in the literature. These include:
c . Some, but not all, faculty evaluation systems change behavior. Faculty development and evaluation are related processes. The former aspires to improve faculty performance and the latter aims to make judgment regarding worth. The processes can be integrated,and can be a powerful technique in changing behavior. On the other hand, there is little evidence that faculty evaluation alone improves instruction. As with any feedback system, faculty evaluation conducted early in the course of instruction favored instructional improvement because it allows faculty members the time and opportunity to make modifications.
Over the past five years, there have evolved standard methods and forms for student and peer evaluation of the faculty through College- and University-Wide initiatives. All teaching units should conform with the standards and use the required forms. Compliance will allow course directors to perform their responsibilities more efficiently, department chairs to have more meaningful assessments of faculty achievement, and the administration to more accurately assess the effectiveness of the overall teaching programs.
For the Curriculum Committee to assess the quality of instruction by the teaching faculty within the courses/clerkships, course directors are responsible that the following objective is addressed.
Objective: Student Evaluation of Teaching Faculty
Standard forms for evaluating teaching faculty by students (Exhibits 2-5) should be used for student assessment (they are available in hard copy and online in Internet-based versions). The forms are available in four formats: Basic Science Teaching, Clinical Teaching, Graduate Medical Education, and a short form for Lectures/Discussion Groups. The latter form should be used only when a faculty member has a minor role in teaching activities. These data will be included in the annual course report.
1 In preparing this report, the recommendations of two subcommittees that prepared reports on Faculty Evaluation in 1997 were reviewed. A subcommittee chaired by Pat Alguire submitted their report on April 9, 1997. A second report, prepared by Patrick Duff, Jeaninne Webb, and Tim VanSusteren, was submitted to the Curriculum Committee on September 10, 1997. In general, we confirm and support the recommendations of the Alguire Subcommittee. The major recommendations of the other subcommittee dealt with modifying the questions and format of the evaluations forms used in the College of Medicine, as part of the SUS standardization of the evaluation of the faculty. Since the COM is required to conform to the SUS standards, it is not productive to propose such modification.
