1) You can’t measure teaching ability. You can, however, assess or evaluate it. The problem with most assessments or metrics is that they presuppose that everything can be turned into a math problem and that a math problem is somehow better. But this creates precision at the expense of accuracy. Quantitative results on something not inherently quantitative is almost never better than qualitative results. “Dr. Professor is a good teacher in areas x, y, and zed but could afford to work on a and b” is infinitely better than “Dr. Professor scored 3.7 on our 1-5 scale.”

2) Multiple measures is the key. Teaching evals — both quantitative and comments; teaching observations from peers within and outside of the discipline; gathering teaching materials (I think we forget that you can tell a great deal from syllabi, assignments, handouts, and the like –if the inputs are good, the outputs have a better chance at being good); self-assessments. None of these is perfect. But the accumulation can allow for gaps to be covered and for multiple angles on teaching. All of these things can be gamed. But if someone is doing reasonably well on all fronts, they are probably a good teacher. If they are awful on all fronts, there is probably a problem.

3) These things should be driven first and foremost from faculty as expressed by departmental and school priorities and so forth. The further the demand comes from the classroom, the worse the solution is likely to be. At state schools, when the legislature decides to poke their snouts in, a politicized, useless clusterfuck is sure to follow.

dcat

This issue (and the related issue of teaching teachers how to teach) are prominent in every college accreditation report I’ve read. Higher education is really struggling with these issues: both evaluation and training.

The short answer is that liberal arts colleges rely on informal mechanisms and there is widespread concern that there needs to be more focused attention paid to the quality of instruction.

One of the reasons that I highlighted something like the writing programs at various colleges is that, by committing full-time faculty resources to writing, this kind of program can be a catalyst for improving how professors teach writing across campus. It’s imperfect, of course, but these are the types of initiatives that the accreditation panels are contemplating when it comes to mechanisms for systematically improving teaching.

The student surveys are viewed as largely counter productive. Every college professor in the country knows that the easiest way to get good student evaluations is to give everyone better grades.

Also, most (all?) departments do have their senior faculty conduct periodic interviews with students who have taken courses with a junior faculty member, so it’s not as if student opinion isn’t factored into a tenure decision.

Some comments:

It seems to me that, of course, it is hard. What works for one student, does not necessarily work for another.

Given the sample sizes, I continue to fundamentally distrust the numerical course survey data, especially for new professors who have only a few data points. It is too easy to manipulate the results in one direction or the other.

Finally– on the use of written comments– one particularly influential department chair, while I was at Williams, argued against expanded attention because this would “give students even more influence in the process.” (My gloss).

But how can we measure or evaluate teaching ability?

In as multi-dimensional and transparent a manner as possible.

First, Williams already does a fine job of this. Numeric scores provided by students are useful, as is written feedback. Seniors are often interviewed about all the professors that they have had in the department, allowing them to provide feedback informed by 4 years at Williams. Recent graduates are (still?) sought out for their opinions. (Williams wrote to me (and other philosophy majors, I assume) after graduation when Alas White came up for tenure.) The more information you gather — numeric and written, immediate and measured — the better off you are.

[Whitney, I think you underestimate how much written/interview information from students is gathered, especially for tenure-track faculty. Corrections welcome.]

Second, I would like to see Williams do more in this regard by setting up a series of prizes for great teaching.

Establish “Ephraim Williams Awards for Teaching Excellence.” Five would be given out every year, each consisting of a cash prize of $50,000. Winners would be selected by a committee dominated by students. The only restriction might be that the same person can’t win two years in a row. Nothing would prevent truly exceptional teachers from being recognized several times each decade.

Of course, there is a lot that could be done with these awards. Perhaps one of the awards should be reserved for excellence in advising senior theses and/or individual projects — thus ensuring that not just the best lecturers win. Perhaps 2 of the five awards could be determined by former students — ideally committees centered around events like the 10th and 25th year reunions. This would nicely bias things toward professors who make a career at Williams, thereby giving folks like Gary Jacobsohn and Tim Cook a(nother) reason to stay.

If you want great teachers to come to and stay at Williams, then giving them special prizes is almost certainly the most cost effective way of doing so.

Even if you don’t like the cash prize aspect of this, having formal, annual, high profile prizes would aid us in our efforts to identify (and retain!) exceptional teachers.

Third, and much more controversially, I would like to see Williams become much more transparent with regard to teaching evaluation. (Needles to say, I think that transparency would make Williams better in every dimension.) This is a tricky issue and I am happy to leave non-tenured faculty out of the equation.

But why not make the summary SCS form information publicly available (at least on campus) for every tenured member of the Williams faculty? There are some great professors at Williams and some less great ones. The students deserve to have as much information as possible.