UMSL's Definition of Teaching Effectiveness
Effective teaching at the University of Missouri-St. Louis creates a student-focused learning environment valuing a diverse community. Effective teaching relies on relevant, organized, inspired, and engaged instruction and promotes critical and creative thinking.
Effective educators use disciplinary, interdisciplinary, or professional experience to design research-informed, carefully-constructed courses. Effective educators tailor teaching strategies and assessments, use appropriate technology, and ensure timely, constructive feedback to support student learning and achievement. Their high educational standards foster lifelong, self-directed learning.
Sustained teaching effectiveness requires refinement through analysis, constructive and continuous feedback, reflection, and professional development. Effective teaching is strengthened by institutional resources, programs, and collegial support and is documented and assessed by outcomes as established by departments and instructors incorporating feedback from students, peers, and self-reflection.
Charge of the Taskforce
We are proud of the strong tradition of teaching excellence at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. However, teaching assessment at UMSL and across the University of Missouri System was found to range in clarity and specificity within and across academic units. Teaching that excels in achieving effective student learning must be assessed and rewarded in ways reflecting its high priority to the university, our faculty, and most importantly, our students. Moreover, resources and mechanisms for rewarding excellent teaching on our campus were found to be limited and inconsistent. UMSL faculty and other instructional staff deserve a comprehensive, clear, and meaningful process for evaluating their teaching as it pertains to their own professional development goals and opportunities for continuous improvement, tenure, promotion, merit, recognition, and other outcomes.
To align with a more meaningful recognition and reward structure for distinction in teaching, together with the other institutions in the UM System, in 2020 it was announced that UMSL was advancing on a path to creating a comprehensive method for measuring teaching effectiveness. In consultation with the Center for Teaching & Learning, the Faculty Senate Academic Advisory Committee, the Faculty Senate Educational Outcomes Committee, and other stakeholders, the Office of the Provost convened a Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce to leverage the foundational work previously started by the then-Intercampus Faculty Council (IFC), and where appropriate, adapt successful implementation models from peer institutions.
The 2020-2023 Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce had four main goals:
- To craft a comprehensive definition of teaching effectiveness
- To propose a campus-wide, multi-measure approach for the evaluation of teaching
- To propose a system to support, recognize, and incentivize teaching excellence
- To establish a plan to measure the long-term impacts of these changes on student learning and success.
To accomplish these goals, the Taskforce grounded its approach in the research literature on best practices and examples from peer and aspirational institutions, relying on the expertise and ingenuity of our own excellent instructors. A campus-wide dialogue was necessary to solicit input from faculty and instructional staff at all levels affected directly by any policy changes.
Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce Members
Eighteen faculty members from across the UMSL campus took up the taskforce charge. They represent a variety of rank, academic discipline, gender, ethnicity, and years of experience at UMSL. The faculty were supported by members of the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL).
For maximum productivity, the committee members organized themselves into three subcommittees for the first year of the Taskforce: Student Feedback, Peer Feedback, and Self-Reflection before reorganizing into new groups supporting the refinement of the Taskforce’s final set of recommendations relating to Student Feedback, Reflective Teaching Communities, and the Summative Evaluation of Teaching.
|
Name |
College/School and Department |
Title |
Subcommittee(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Kim Baldus, Taskforce Chair |
Pierre Laclede Honors College |
Teaching Professor |
Peer Feedback 2020-2021, |
|
Nancy Singer, Taskforce Chair |
College of Education |
Associate Professor |
All subcommittees 2020-2021, |
| Sanjiv Bhatia | College of Arts and Sciences, Computer Science | Professor | Self-Reflection 2020-2021, Reflective Teaching Communities 2021-2023 |
| Michael Gearhart |
School of Social Work |
Assistant Professor | Student Feedback 2022-2023 |
| Baorong Guo |
School of Social Work |
Associate Professor | Peer Feedback 2020-2021, Summative Group 2021-2022 |
|
Shea Kerkhoff |
College of Education |
Assistant Professor | Peer Feedback 2020-2021, Student Feedback 2021-2023 |
| Vanessa Loyd |
College of Nursing |
Associate Teaching Professor | Student Feedback 2020-2021, Summative Feedback 2021-2022 |
| Seemantini Pathak |
College of Business Administration, Global Leadership and Management |
Associate Professor | Reflective Teaching Communities 2021-2022 |
| Tareq Nabhan |
College of Optometry |
Assistant Clinical Professor | Self-Reflection 2020-2021, Reflective Teaching Communities 2021-2023 |
| Brandon Ofem |
College of Business Administration, Global Leadership and Management |
Associate Professor | Student Feedback 2022-2023 |
| Paula Prouhet |
College of Nursing |
Associate Teaching Professor | Student Feedback 2022-2023 |
| Jennifer Reynolds Moehrle | College of Business Administration, Accounting | Professor | Student Feedback 2020-2022; Summative Evaluation 2022-2023 |
| Kurt Schreyer |
College of Arts and Sciences, English |
Associate Professor | Student Feedback 2020-2023 |
| Jeffrey Sippel |
College of Arts and Sciences, Art and Design |
Professor | Peer Feedback 2020-2021, Reflective Teaching Communities 2021-2022 |
| Michael Smith |
College of Arts and Sciences, Music |
Associate Professor | Summative Evaluation 2022-2023 |
| Marc Spingola |
College of Arts and Sciences, Biology |
Teaching Professor | Summative Evaluation 2021-2023 |
| Ann Steffen | College of Arts and Sciences, Psychological Sciences | Professor | Self-Reflection 2020-2021, Reflective Teaching Communities 2021-2023 |
| Hiroko Yoshii | College of Arts and Sciences, Language and Cultural Studies | Assistant Teaching Professor | Student Feedback 2020-2021, Reflective Teaching Communities 2021-2023 |
|
Amber Burgett |
Center for Teaching and Learning |
Learning Analytics Coordinator |
Student Feedback 2022-2023 |
|
Keeta Holmes |
Center for Teaching and Learning |
Director, CTL, and Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Innovation |
All subcommittees 2020-2023 |
|
Jen McKanry |
Center for Teaching and Learning |
Assistant Director, CTL |
Self-Reflection 2020-2021, Student Feedback 2021-2023 |
|
Mary Painter |
Center for Teaching and Learning |
Learning Analytics Coordinator |
Student Feedback 2020-2022 |
|
Erin Whitteck |
Center for Teaching and Learning and College of Arts and Sciences, Chemistry and Biochemistry |
Assistant Director, CTL and Assistant Teaching Professor |
Peer Feedback 2020-2021, Reflective Teaching Communities 2021-2023 |
Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce Subcommittees
The Student Feedback Subcommittee was tasked with understanding ways in which we can successfully use student feedback to inform teaching and learning as laid out by the teaching effectiveness definition.
This group identified the following goals:
- Craft, solicit input, and test a new set of common questions tied directly to UMSL's definition of teaching effectiveness. The common question set will follow best practices for survey design and survey questions to reduce impact of bias or equity concerns.
- Develop a research-informed set of strategies to improve the quantity and quality of student feedback collected at mid-semester and end-of-semester.
- Develop a process by which departments can contribute additional questions into the student feedback surveys.
- Design and implement a pilot of the survey tool logistics, common question set, and process for adding departmental/college questions.
The Reflective Teaching Communities Subcommittee was dedicated to designing a supportive, collaborative, non-evaluative program to guide self-reflection through visiting the classrooms of peers.
The group identified the following goals:
- Design a program that includes flexibility yet structure to yield productive reflective conversations about our teaching rooted in goal setting.
- Solicit faculty and academic leader input through several rounds of focus groups throughout the design phase to tailor the program to best meet the needs of our faculty.
- Create supportive materials to assist faculty in yielding the greatest benefit from the opportunity of visiting colleagues' courses and channeling what they learn into their own teaching.
The Summative Evaluation of Teaching Subcommittee was tasked with recommending a holistic system that incorporates multiple measures of teaching tied to UMSL's definition of teaching effectiveness to be used by administrators for the purposes of faculty evaluation of teaching, teaching awards, and promotion/tenure.
The group identified the following goals:
- Research models of multi-measure systems including holistic systems in use at other public institutions of higher ed that incorporate and balance student feedback, peer voice, and self-reflection.
- Consider the role of peer voice in evaluation of teaching.
- Identify strategies for reducing the role of student survey scores in the evaluation of teaching in recognition that student perceptions of their experiences with an instructor is not a measure of actual teaching effectiveness or student learning.
- Seek input from campus leadership and do SWOT analysis from the UMSL lens.
Resources and References
The Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce invites you to examine these resources as our community considers how to best implement the Taskforce recommendations to assess, support, and reward teaching for learning on campus.
2020-2023: Provost-charged Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce
October 8, 2020 - Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce announcement letter from the Provost
On October 8, 2020, Provost Marie T. Mora and Assistant Vice Provost for Academic Innovation Keeta Holmes announced the formation of the Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce to the UMSL community.
November 13, 2020 - Feedback for Definition of Teaching Effectiveness
February 2, 2021 - Feedback for Next Draft on Definition of Teaching Effectiveness
In November 2020, we reached out to the UMSL community for feedback on the Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce’s definition of teaching effectiveness. The Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce took the constructive suggestions from that feedback and incorporated it into a new working definition. We invited the campus once again for input for the final working draft of the definition. We invited campus input now on our initial work through a brief form by February 3, 2020. The definition was as follows:
2020-2021: Established a definition of Teaching Effectiveness
- This included multiple campus focus groups of faculty, leaders and students to collect recommendations.
- Drafted definition was distributed multiple times for feedback during this period and adjustments were made based on campus recommendations.
2021-2022: Collected feedback on current Course Evaluations and other Teaching Evaluation methods. Conducted extensive literature review of multi-modal feedback strategies and best practices for student feedback surveys.
- Faculty Focus Groups on the Reflective Teaching Communities program: March - April 2022
- Academic Leaders Focus Groups on the Reflective Teaching Communities program: March - April 2022
- Faculty, Staff, and Academic Leaders input on the common question set: April 2022
2022-2023: Developed a standardized set of Common Questions. Renamed Course Evaluation to End-of-Course Student Feedback Survey to more accurately represent the data collected. Developed resources to help faculty increase quantity & quality of responses.
- Campus Opt-In pilot to use and test the new common question set: Summer 2022, Fall 2022
- This slide deck was built by the UMSL Teaching Effectiveness Taskforce to provide updates across campus on one aspect of the many different areas of work it is doing, the End-of-Semester Student Feedback Survey (formerly known as course evaluations). Detailed notes and script for the slides can be found in the slide notes.
- Held a series of Campus Information Sessions Spring 2023 (see slide deck)
- Campus Opt-Out pilot to use and test the new common question set and process for additional department questions: Spring 2023
2023-2024: Developed a Multiple Measures model for Teaching Evaluations including triangulation of Student, Self and Peer feedback. Drafted the final report to the Faculty Senate Academic Advisory and Assessment Committee.
- Campus wide use of the new common question set: Summer 2023, Fall 2023
2024: Supported the CTL in the launch of the Reflective Teaching Communities program (built on Teaching Squares model).
2025+: Faculty Senate Academic Advisory and Assessment Committee continues the work on implementing the Multiple Measures model recommended.
The following resources were developed through the work of the Taskforce and are now housed on the CTL website.