In the face of a long, protracted pandemic with reports of exhaustion streaming in from all quarters, many educators may feel they were not able to teach as effectively as they would have liked to. This is the perfect time to revisit (or ask anew) a critical question: What is the best way for a faculty member to demonstrate teaching effectiveness?
Most discussions in higher education seem to revolve around the use of student evaluations of teaching (SETs). Yes, for promotion and tenure, external letter writers receive dossiers of information, also looked at by internal committees, but too often SETs are the key. It is how higher education has done it for years but need not persist. To fully capture the hard work that is teaching, we need to change how we evaluate and reward teaching.
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I also want to add the ‘Measurement Instrument of Scientific Teaching’ as a validated tool out there to assess implementation of evidence-based teaching practices in science courses: https://www.lifescied.org/doi/10.1187/cbe.17-02-0033.