There are many ways to assess and evaluate your teaching above and beyond the USAT.
Last month I wrote about grade appeals, but before that you have to have taught the course!
For some reason, most QUFA Members forget that there are various ways to assess teaching. Sure, there is the USAT, but that is only one tool, and there is a whole article in the Collective Agreement devoted to this topic.
Article 29.1.3 and 29.1.4 give the broad context:
- 29.1.3: Assessment and evaluation of teaching shall be based on the effectiveness of the instructor, as indicated by command over subject matter, familiarity with recent developments in the field, preparedness, presentation, accessibility to students, and influence on the intellectual and scholarly developments of students.
- 29.1.4: Any person or Committee reviewing a Member’s teaching shall seek to balance all aspects of teaching as well as the Departmental/Faculty context within which the Member works.
What follows in the Article is a list of various things to consider:
- There is a section devoted to what items could appear in a teaching dossier; (For help in developing your own teaching dossier, the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) has assembled a set of additional resources.)
- There is a section devoted to the USAT, which is administered through the Registrar’s office via student representatives
- There is a section about how you can administer your own course survey.
If you have questions about any of these items, please do not hesitate to get in touch with the QUFA office.
Article 29 is relevant not only when you are going through assessment for major personnel processes, but also every year for the Annual Performance Review (Article 28).
Make sure your teaching is being adequately assessed, that it is not being reduced to a single number on a student evaluation tool.
Ramneek Pooni
This Grievance Corner was taken from the November, 2014 edition of QUFA Voices.