Critique of Approaches for Evaluating Teaching and Proposal for a New Institutional Policy

Abstract

A review of current literature provides ample evidence that Student Evaluation of Teaching, as currently practiced, can be a biased and flawed evaluation of educator performance and student learning. Due to this, many institutions have developed their own internal multimodal approach for faculty evaluation and professional advancement review that removes the underlying bias associated with survey results. Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine created a task force to evaluate the current teaching assessment practices and provide an alternative method. Based on an extensive literature review, an institutional policy was created using a multimodal approach, combining student evaluations of teaching scores with peer review of teaching, review of teaching materials, mentorship, self-ratings, and self-reflection. The implementation plan for this policy is described to allow for a teaching evaluation process built on a philosophy of mentorship, guidance, and self-reflection, as well as the use of external professional exam metrics to review the institutional academic quality at large.

Keywords: multimodal approach to teaching; objective measures of teaching assessment; peer observation; peer review of teaching; self-reflection; student evaluation of teaching; student interview.