Through shared governance, the University of Washington has committed to conducting collegial evaluations of teaching (Faculty Code Section 24-32.c and Section 24-37).
The educational function of a university requires faculty to routinely reflect on and refine teaching practices. Instruction must be judged according to each of the following core elements of effective teaching:
- Aligned: Effective teaching is intentionally designed and organized to help learners meet learning objectives.
- Inclusive and equitable: Effective teaching considers learners’ experiences and creates opportunities for each learner to thrive.
- Active and engaged: Effective teaching creates opportunities for learners to critically engage ideas and each other.
- Growth-oriented: Effective teaching creates opportunities for learners to learn through practice and provides feedback that helps them grow their knowledge and abilities.
- Relevant: Effective teaching helps learners understand why what they are learning matters and prepares them for future learning and life after the UW.
These evaluations provide an important complement to student teaching evaluations in reflecting on and improving one’s teaching as well as in merit and promotion reviews.
In Human Centered Design & Engineering, we embrace this process to improve our teaching – as both faculty being evaluated and faculty conducting the evaluation. The Department intends that these evaluations will be conducted in an atmosphere of collegiality and mutual support and asks that evaluators strive to appreciate teaching styles and methods different from their own.
Faculty are encouraged to augment peer reviews with evaluation by trained experts such as those in the Office for the Advancement of Engineering Teaching & Learning (ET&L) or the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).
Guidelines for Peer Evaluators
Peer evaluations should be conducted according to UW’s core elements of effective teaching. They can be applied both to specific courses and to the instructor's overall teaching effort.
In addition to the guidelines below, evaluators and faculty being evaluated are encouraged to use this evaluation document (Word doc) which scaffolds this process. The steps below refer to specific steps and pages in this document.
A significant portion of the Department's teaching takes place outside the classroom and assumes such forms as dissertation direction, mentorship of students on independent projects, internship supervision, and the teaching of directed research groups. Such instruction may be covered in peer evaluations, but the primary focus of this evaluation is courses and DRGs.
Schedule
Peer evaluations are based on the rank of the reviewee and, for associate teaching professors, associate professors, teaching professors and professors, the point reached in the three-year review cycle.
- For assistant teaching professors and assistant professors, a collegial evaluation shall be performed every year.
- For associate teaching professors, associate professors, teaching professors and professors, a collegial evaluation shall be conducted every three years.
When merit review raises concerns or questions about a faculty member’s teaching, collegial teaching evaluations may be required more frequently.
Process
Step 1. Evaluee Preparation. The faculty being evaluated reflects on how their teaching reflects the UW core elements of effective teaching.
The evaluation template contains a worksheet for this, which faculty being evaluated may wish to share directly with the evaluator as context – though that is not required. Over time, faculty may find it useful to develop and periodically update this sheet for each course they regularly teach, and it may be a helpful resource in preparing merit reviews and promotion materials. This is not, however, required.
Step 2. Collaboratively plan the scope of the evaluation. The faculty conducting the evaluation and the faculty being evaluated meet to plan the evaluation and discuss its format and scope. This includes sharing the evaluee’s teaching goals, success, and desired focus as well as planning for what materials will be reviewed and what course and specific class session, if any, will be observed.
Notes on scope. HCDE strongly recommends including an observation, as it can provide vital insight on the sort of comments that come up in student evaluations, and a peer evaluator’s perspective can be helpful in knowing how to respond to those comments as well as influential during merit review conversations.
Evaluators should recognize that courses will at times be in an experimental or transitional stage and should evaluate them accordingly; the cover sheet the supporting materials contains places to document this context about specific courses.
Peer evaluations should consider the full teaching activity of each instructor. All courses and HCDE496/596 research groups should be examined during each evaluation. Note, however, that not all courses and research groups should be evaluated in the same depth. Evaluators and evaluees should collaboratively determine areas of emphasis rather than conducting a thorough evaluation of all teaching. Importantly, an evaluation of teaching-track faculty will require being parsimonious about areas evaluated in depth, given differences in teaching responsibilities to keep workload similar to evaluation of tenure-track faculty.
Considerations for determining areas of depth in the evaluation:
- Course(s) or other aspects of teaching for which the evaluator wants feedback (e.g., recently revised materials, areas in which student evaluations raise questions) and/or to showcase teaching strengths,
- Areas in which the evaluator would most evaluate the evaluator’s feedback (e.g., based on the evaluator’s feedback),
- or, if otherwise not identifying priorities, areas of interest for the evaluator to learn from the evaluee’s teaching
Additionally, peer teaching evaluations should engage with student evaluations, if available. Peer teaching evaluations that are discrepant from student evaluations, without engaging with those discrepancies, is less useful in merit and promotion conversations than one that helps to contextualize student evaluations.
Step 3. Conduct the review. The evaluator reviews teaching materials and peer evaluations and visits the classroom. The worksheet in step 3 (see resources above) contains prompts for recording notes.
Step 4. Evaluator and evaluee debrief. This may use the notes from step 3 and/or a draft version of the report (summative evaluation page). It is an opportunity to ask clarification questions or for the evaluee to provide context on point in the observation or draft report. Additionally, the evaluee and evaluator might discuss resources or techniques aligned with the evaluee’s teaching goals or suggestions that emerge from the review of materials.
This meeting shall be confidential, and evaluators may also choose to convey orally comments that are unsuitable for inclusion in the report. Evaluators, for example, may wish to convey findings based on partial or conflicting evidence in oral form.
Step 5. Prepare the report. Evaluators will prepare a draft version of the evaluation report, including finalizing the cover sheet and summative report. After receiving the draft, the evaluee may meet with the evaluator(s) in order to ask questions or state objections concerning the evaluation process or the draft report. Evaluators may revise and then sign a final version of the report. Evaluators present the signed report and present it to the evaluee, who will have the opportunity to append responses and then sign it.
Step 6. Send the report to the assistant to the chair. The evaluator will send the final signed report to the evaluator. In the event the evaluee does not sign the report, the evaluator may share their signed version with the assistant to the chair.
FAQ
As we begin adopting these resources to scaffold the peer evaluation process, I am concerned that completing step 1 (the self-evaluation) for each course will be high workload.
Yes. Generating separate reflection sheets for each course – especially for those teaching many different courses – represents significant initial work. We encourage developing these sheets as a gradual process - perhaps completing one or two of these per year, and integrating updating them into your quarterly teaching preparation process.
As a reminder, the self-evaluations step is optional and informal. Evaluators may share them with the evaluator but they are not shared with the department. We hope their use will, in time, facilitate a lower workload for peer evals, merit review, and promotion considerations.
- Can we use a different format or process?
Evaluators and evaluees may mutually agree on a different process. If considering a different process, please prioritize (a) evaluation according to the core elements of effective teaching (as these must be considered in merit and promotion evaluations!) and (b) the evaluee’s needs.