Resources

Examines the author's teaching evaluations to help understand what they measure and how they may be used to make changes in classroom performance. States that teachers should view teaching evaluations as an opportunity to develop as teachers.

Examines sociology student perceptions of faculty and graduate instructor educational attainment as a function of gender. Finds that students misattribute in an upward direction the level of education by male graduate instructors and in a downward direction the level of formal education attained by women, even if the female is a full professor.

A junior faculty member reflects on the dilemma of that professional position, noting that its anxieties fall into two categories: "Is this all there is?" and "What if we lose it?" She examines problems with, and prohibitions against, speaking one's mind in that position, sees solutions as being institutional or individual, and examines how concerns are linked to other campus constituencies.

We describe the development, implementation, and assessment of a faculty study group program designed to foster teaching as a reflective, collaborative activity within a research university. Conceived within conceptual frameworks that challenge technical/rationalist approaches to faculty development, the program was successful in creating opportunities for faculty of different disciplines, age groups, ranks, and teaching experience to establish productive discourse communities around their own teaching. Our experience shows that such programs require careful thought and planning, which we detail here, and that faculty even in research oriented institutions can be captured by the “good problem” that teaching represents.

This report examines the potential revolution in U.S. higher education public policies that require improved student learning. This revolution includes numerous teaching innovations activities that were initiated and sustained by external pressures and politically astute reformers. The report notes the criticism of U.S. elementary and secondary education and discusses how that criticism has spilled over into higher education. It examines reports which present the view that higher education is in deep need of reform. Faced with externally driven assessment and accountability movements, reformers have contended that the way to protect institutional autonomy from encroachment by external agencies is to focus on the importance of teaching and learning. Brief excerpts are presented from six voices of reform (Alexander Astin; Derek Bok and Richard Light; Ernest L. Boyer; K. Patricia Cross; and Lee Shulman) that highlight their vision of how to improve teaching and learning. Understanding that the assessment movement began as a drive for accountability at the national and state levels, rather than as local campus initiatives to improve teaching and learning, the paper offers insights on why major reform efforts were framed as demands that colleges and universities show better performance. The report concludes by examining the dilemmas that educational reformers face.