Teaching Evaluation Working Group

Overview

The Teaching Evaluation Working Group (TEWG) was established in January 2019 by the Office of the Provost and the Faculty Senate for Norman campus. 

The Faculty Senate Faculty Welfare Committee and the Office of the Provost charged the Teaching Evaluation Working Group with assessing and improving course evaluations and the faculty teaching evaluation process to reduce biases and improve actionability, with the goal of improving teaching, learning, and equity. 

Towards this goal, the TEWG has been working to:

• Create new instruments that may include, but are not limited to, instruments for student evaluation, peer evaluation, and self-evaluation of teaching.
• Gather feedback on new processes or tools from stakeholders including students, faculty, instructors, Chairs and Committees A, Deans, the Office of the Provost, the Center for Faculty Excellence, teaching awards committees, and the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.·
• Pilot new instruments to collect student’s feedback about courses, then gather and analyze feedback and data from departments, faculty, and students.  Perform an analysis of gender and race bias in the traditional and experimental evaluations.

Membership

• Aaron Biggs, Associate Provost for Academic Technology
• Amy Bradshaw, Professor of Educational Psychology
• Hong Lin, Associate Director for Teaching, Center for Faculty Excellence
• Karen Hennes, Associate Professor and Director of School of Accounting
• Keri Kornelson (Chair),  Professor of Mathematics
  
• Lori Snyder, Associate Professor of Psychology
  
• Megan Elwood Madden, Professor of Geoscience and Director of the Center for Faculty Excellence
• Ulli Nollert, Associate Professor Chemical, Biological, and Materials Engineering
• Wayne Riggs, Professor and Chair of Philosophy

 Previous Membership

• Anthony Natale, Professor of Social Work
• Jill Irvine, Professor of International and Area Studies and Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

Timeline of Events

Spring/Summer 2019

• Creation of the Teaching Evaluation Working Group.
• The working group got started by:
  • Reviewing the policies each unit has published regarding their annual review of teaching.
  • Reviewing literature on promising practices for Student Evaluation of Teaching.
  • Researching existing instruments for SET offered by vendors.
• April 24, 2019 - Faculty Senate Exec Committee.  Met with OU students who created an app to help visualize the results of the SET for given courses.
• May 3, 2019 - Meeting with IDEA representatives for a demonstration of their Student Ratings of Instruction system.  Their main idea is that students report on their course experience. 
• June 2019 - Zoom meeting with U. Oregon members of their Teaching Evaluation Task Force

Fall 2019

• October 18, 2019 - Charge to the Teaching Evaluation Working Group from the Faculty Senate Faculty Welfare Committee and the Office of the Provost.
• December 9, 2019 - Sources for Teaching Evaluations presented to Faculty Senate.

Spring/Summer 2020

• May 2020 - Draft of the Student Experience Survey shown to groups of faculty and administrators
• June 2020 - Draft of Student Experience Survey shown to members of SGA.
• July 2020 - Pilot of Student Experience Survey in summer courses.

Fall 2020

• October 2020 - Teaching Evaluation Resource website

Spring 2021

• January 2021 - The next SES pilot phase began. Eighteen units agreed to use the Student Experience Survey in their Spring semester courses.
• March 2021 - OU TEWG received an award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the program HHMI-IE3 .  We joined a Learning Community Cluster that is addressing the Challenge, "Meaningful evaluation of effective and inclusive teaching, which will inform faculty practices, including promotion and tenure decisions".
• April 19, 2021 - TEWG presented to the SGA Executive Cabinet about the Student Experience Survey and collected their feedback on the instrument.
• May 10, 2021 - TEWG presented to the Faculty Senate on the SES pilot and the ongoing pilot.

Summer 2021

• Pilot continued.
• Instructors/students in the Spring 2021 pilot were surveyed about their experience with the SES. 

Fall 2021

• Pilot continued.
• September 13, 2021 - TEWG presented at a Provost's Chairs and Directors meeting about our progress on the SES, giving information about the pilot and inviting units to join the Fall 2021 pilot.
• November 7, 2021 - TEWG presented to the Graduate Student Congress and gathered feedback.