Student Success in the Classroom Summit

November 15, 2024

Academic Affairs & Center for Excellence in Teaching & Learning

Welcome & Overview

• Welcome
• Action Plans in the Aggregate
• Update on Progress
• Change Strategies
• Supporting Spaces for Opening Practice
• Utilizing Peer Review
• Updating Action Plans
• Promotion and Tenure Ideas
• Wrap-up

Level Setting from October 4 Event

• Colleges met on or before October 4 to review student success data including retention, graduation rates, and course performance.
• Department and unit leads were invited to identify a team of 2-4 faculty change agents to attend the summit. Teams collaborated on identifying key barriers and opportunities to support student success, creating action plans for incorporating high-impact, inclusive teaching practices across courses.
• Over 220 participants attended, and 44 departments submitted action plans.

Three Evidence-Based Practices

Set high-level performance expectations to guide students in their learning from basic recall towards complex problem-solving. Performance expectations should align with assignments and be set at a sufficient level to challenge and engage students.

Evidence-Based Practices cont.

Provide transparent assignment purpose statements explaining why an assignment is important, how it is relevant to students, and what knowledge and skills will be used. Transparency helps students see the relevance of their work, enhances engagement, and improves learning outcomes.

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Evidence-Based Practices cont.

Gather student feedback throughout the semester to check transparency as well as improve teaching and learning. Checking in with students to identify their needs and adjusting teaching accordingly fosters a more inclusive and supportive learning environment.

Action Plans in the Aggregate

• Current activities: Lots happening, often within individual courses
• Challenges:
• High Workloads and Lack of Time: Faculty struggle to find time due to already heavy workloads, making it difficult to adopt and modify teaching practices.
• Communication Barriers and Lack of Incentives: Existing structures limit information sharing, and many faculty members operate independently without a shared understanding of departmental goals. There are few resources or incentives to encourage faculty participation in teaching and learning, resulting in limited engagement.
• Need for Collaboration: Departments desire more structured sharing of practices among faculty to foster a culture of teaching and learning – most stated there are not spaces to discuss and share about teaching.

Proposed Steps

1. Increase Faculty Engagement and Discussion
• Share teaching strategies and ideas at faculty meetings.
• Encourage peer review of syllabi and assignments to increase transparency and verb alignment.
2. Promote Participation in Workshops and Mid-Semester Evaluations
• Promote and participate in CETL workshops, with a focus on student feedback and improving assignments.
• Incorporate mid-semester evaluations.
• Implement workshops and peer-to-peer classroom observations.
3. Increase Use of Data to Inform Teaching
• Analyze DFW (Drop, Fail, Withdrawal) rates, particularly in introductory courses.
• Gather and assess student feedback to inform teaching strategies and course development.
• Use student climate surveys to understand the impact of current teaching methods on student success. 

Sharing Updates

Supporting Spaces for Discussing Teaching & Learning

Options and Ideas

Opportunities for Opening Practice

• Space for opening practice
• Informal communication channels
• Formal opportunities to share - annual retreat, department meetings
• Survey of faculty current practices, challenges, and what they would like to implement
• Learning Communities
• Book clubs or resource sharing
• Shared Folder of Canvas course

Sociology Ex.

• Space and time every semester in a retreat
• Three words to describe Fall teaching
• Reflections on teaching (complete activity)
• Looking forward to teaching in spring
• Workshop on inclusive teaching practices
• DFW rates discussion
• Support U mini workshop

Ideas

• Faculty Spotlight: Each faculty member in the department has the spotlight for 1 minute. They identify their current unit of study and share a snapshot of one lesson that worked well and, reflexively, identify one that fell flat, trying to pinpoint what might have been amiss. This allows colleagues to learn from each other’s successes while offering the opportunity to provide honest reflection on improvement.
• Resource Sharing: Each teacher shares a website, digital tool, or resource that was beneficial in the past month.
• Monthly Focus: Select a specific focus for the month. It may be a professional goal like fine-tuning questions on final exams or it could be personal ones like find new ways to make students comfortable in the classroom. �https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/department-meetings-done-right

Mid-Semester Feedback Surveys or Focus Groups

• What is working well in the course?
• What has been most helpful for your learning in this class so far? (e.g., Describe the time(s) in this class when you were most engaged)
• What needs improvement?
• What has caused you the most difficulty in terms of learning in this class so far? 
• What suggestion(s) can you make that would enhance your learning experience in this class?
• What changes would facilitate your learning?

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Action Plan on Change Strategies

https://forms.office.com/r/LLhnme3jH9

Utilizing Peer Review

Options and Ideas

Peer Review Approaches

• Syllabus
• Learning Outcomes
• Assignments
• Rubrics
• Teaching
• Classroom observations
• Course design
• Engagement strategies
• Active learning approaches
• Readings

DPT Program: Collaborative Peer Review

Thank you to DPT for sharing this slide!

DPT Program: Collaborative Peer Review

Article on the peer review process

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For more information:

Wendy Huddleston, PT, PhD

Doctor of Physical Therapy Program Director

huddlest@uwm.edu

TEval

https://cte.ku.edu/benchmarks-teaching-effectiveness University of Kansas

Other Examples and Resources

• Teaching Quality Framework Initiative, University of Colorado Boulder
• Course review template, New York University
• Teaching observation rubric, New York University
• Online course review form, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Peer review of teaching examples, Central Washington University

Action Plan on Change Strategies

• https://forms.office.com/r/LLhnme3jH9

Supporting Teaching and Learning in Promotion and Tenure

Some Ideas and Examples…

Supporting student success in the classroom through the promotion and tenure process:

• Peer Review of Teaching – formative/summative
• Policy on evaluating teaching effectiveness
• Promotion and tenure criteria
• Annual evaluations
• Rubrics, checklists, training sessions

Peer Review of Teaching: NDSU

Peer review is an intentional process of gathering information and evidence about the effectiveness of the teaching/learning process and the educational environment with a view to subjecting it to constructive critical scrutiny. 

Peer Review of Teaching Program

North Dakota State University Peer Review Process:

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• Formative Review: Intended for improving one’s teaching.
• Summative Evaluation: Performance evaluation that is especially helpful for decisions such as promotion/tenure or for merit considerations. 

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NDSU Peer Review Process

• Review of course materials
• Pre classroom observation meeting
• Two classroom observations
• Post classroom observation meeting
• Written report submitted to:
• Faculty for Formative Review
• Faculty & Department Chair for Summative Review

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Policy on Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness

Four guiding principles

• To clarify and reflect what is meant by teaching effectiveness
• To emphasize the improvement of teaching and learning
• To utilize a holistic approach that triangulates the measurement of teaching effectiveness
• To minimize possible forms of bias such as student motivation and student or instructor demographics.

The triangulation approach to measuring teaching effectiveness should include data collected from the instructor, students, and peers.

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Promotion/Tenure Policy on Teaching Effectiveness Evidence

A candidate demonstrates quality of teaching (encompassing both instruction and advising) by providing evidence and information from multiple sources such as:

• student, peer, and client evaluation of course materials, expertise, and ability to communicate knowledge (note that student ratings of instruction, by themselves, are insufficient evidence of teaching effectiveness)
• peer evaluation of an individual’s contribution to the improvement of instructional programs through the development and/or implementation of new courses, curricula or innovative teaching methods
• …

Promotion/Tenure Policy

• Units are responsible for ensuring that promotion and tenure evaluation criteria be aligned with official position descriptions.
• When evaluating candidates for promotion and tenure, review committees shall align their applications of the criteria with the candidate’s position description.

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Promotion/Tenure Portfolio Guidelines

Quality of teaching (administration and peer evaluation): Provide statement by Department Chair (if teaching was not evaluated as part of annual review), and peers which evaluates:

• course content and design;
• teaching methods;
• individual contributions to the improvement of instructional programs; and/or
• impact on student learning.

Promotion/Tenure – Focus on the Evidence

• Rubric and Qualitative Terms For Use In Faculty Evaluation. For maintaining consistency in the evaluation process and helping those under evaluation have a clear understanding of performance evaluations.

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• Reviewer’s Summary Evaluation to ensure evaluation is based on evidence
• Indicate aspects of teaching/performance, research and creative activity, and service about which the dossier did not contain sufficient documentation
• Write a summary statement that addresses the principal accomplishment in the areas and evaluates strengths and weaknesses. Then, indicate whether the dossier contained adequate documentation regarding each area.

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Wrap-up and Next Steps

Follow-Up

Please raise your hand if you are interested in the following ongoing supports:

Wrap-up and Next Steps

• Submit change strategies plans
• If easier, you are welcome to email any updates to original action plans
• Complete evaluation
• Register to attend the January 9, Teaching and Learning Symposium
• Student Success in the Classroom webpage – coming to you next week!