Faculty Evaluation

As a new faculty member at the university, you will receive feedback on your teaching from your students as one part of the evaluation process. In addition, you will receive feedback from a coordinator (or chair) and your colleagues. Your coordinator’s report will be based on conversations with you, student questionnaires, in-class observations of teaching behaviours, and other materials as appropriate. Colleague reports will be based on similar criteria with the exception of access to student questionnaires.

The formal faculty evaluation process is integral to documenting your success as an instructor at the institution and to offering support and guidance for continued effective instruction that supports student learning and success.

Seeking feedback on your teaching as well as student learning from students, peers, and your coordinator prior to the commencement of the formal evaluation process would be a valuable, proactive step for you to take. The insights that you gain will affirm that your teaching and student learning are progressing well and/or inform you of changes that you may chose to make. This process in called formative feedback.

Instructors are using formative feedback from their students to make changes that will enhance the student learning experience.

One formative feedback technique that instructors frequently use is called Start; Stop; Continue. Ask students to identify:

  1. Start: What would you like me as your instructor to start doing to improve your learning?
  2. Stop: What would you like me as your instructor to stop doing to improve your learning?
  3. Continue: What would you like me as your instructor to continue doing to improve your learning?

After receiving the feedback, the instructor shares with the students the main themes that emerged from their feedback and explains what can be changed in the course to advance student learning and what may not be able to be changed and why.

Open Classroom Week, organized by the CTE, is an opportunity to visit other instructors’ classes to observe what they are doing and what can be learned and adapted for your own teaching context.

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