Training for Faculty Evaluation Leads

Dr. Elizabeth Frye

Assistant Dean, Faculty Evaluation�efrye@austincc.edu

Dr. Theresa Glenn

Dean, Faculty Development & Evaluation�tglenn2@austincc.edu

Dr. Marcus McGuff

Faculty Evaluation eApp Support

mmcguff@austincc.edu �

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1. Web App Training: 1 hour (everyone)
2. The Evaluation Process and Formative Evaluation: 1 hour (evaluators)
• The procedures of the new evaluation process: Ratings, documentation, deadlines, etc.
• Strategies for formative evaluation

Last year, Faculty Evaluation worked closely with ACC’s IT department to develop a web-app to simplify �the work involved in producing �Faculty Evaluation Summary Forms for all faculty.

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Special thanks to the IT team: Lalitha Sangana, Kathy Galaviz, �Kerry Corley, and Brandon Etheredge

The Faculty Evaluation Summary system can be accessed in MyACC:

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Faculty Summary Evaluation system web-app �additional info - link

Important Features

• Role-based security - Users only have access to materials they should be able to see/edit
• Login through ACC single sign-on (Okta)
• Department Chairs can assign Evaluation Assistant(s) to help with administrative duties and Reviewers to do initial reviews
• Forms are automatically routed between people within the web-app, not through email
• Forms can be routed forwards/backwards in the chain with a note (not visible to anyone else)
• Forms change to fit full-time/adjunct faculty automatically
• Upon final Dean approval, a secure PDF is generated with signatures and stored automatically
• Faculty, Department Chairs, and Deans are pre-populated for each department along with full-time/adjunct status
• Faculty view, acknowledge, and sign their Summary Forms within the web-app

The Different Roles in the System

Roles in the System

Department Chairs - Access to all Summary Forms in their department

• Set up weightings for their department (weightings are printed on forms)
• Can assign Evaluation Assistants for the department and/or assign Reviewers for each faculty member
• Can enter comments for each section in the form and assign ratings (or modify Reviewer’s comments/ratings)
• Can send form back to reviewer with notes before signing or send forward to faculty for review
• Can handle faculty conference requests and attach conference reports/Performance Improvement Plans

Deans - Access to all Summary Forms in their area

• Receive a notification when forms are ready for their review and/or signature
• Review forms from Department Chairs where the Overall Rating is “Does not meet” before going to faculty
• Can send the form back to the Department Chair with a note for reconsideration
• Choose Contract Length (full-time faculty only) and sign; Box Sign generates the final PDF
• Have access to a report that shows the status of all forms in their area and can view any completed summary form in their department

Evaluation Assistants - Can only assign reviewers, choose evaluation year, �and monitor progress

• Evaluation Assistants are assigned by Department Chairs for the department(s)
• Can assign reviewers and the year of the evaluation cycle to individual faculty and view where each faculty form is in the process
• Cannot view or edit comments or ratings on forms; they only have access to the headers

Reviewers - Have access to the forms they are assigned to review only

• Reviewers are assigned by either the Department Chair or an Assistant for individual faculty reviews
• Department Chairs should never be assigned to be Reviewers (leave Reviewer blank if DC is the only person reviewing it - they are automatically “reviewers” of everybody)
• Can enter comments for each section in the form and assign ratings
• Forms are no longer visible after being sent to the Department Chair
• Department Chair may return forms to them for further consideration with a note

Individual faculty members - Can only view their own forms

• Can acknowledge receipt of their Summary Form, add comments, and/or request a conference
• Can view their archived Summary Forms after final Dean’s signature

Basic workflow within the system:

Before anything else: DC assigns weights for the current year

DC assigns Evaluation Assistants; �DC and Evaluation Assistants can assign Reviewers

Please contact us if you would like access to our Testing System in order to experiment around in a “sandbox” system that doesn’t connect to the official one.

Important Notes for �Department Chairs:

• You must go in and set up department weightings each year before any forms can be edited (if you have more than one department listed for you, you will need to set it up for each of those departments)
• Please triple check those weightings before you hit submit - Once you submit the weightings for the year and you start entering Summary Forms, you will not be able to change them.
• If you have more than one department listed for you, there will only be one Summary Form per faculty member. (All of their departments under you should be listed on their form.) If they teach in another completely different department, they will have a separate form for each of those.
• Only 1 reviewer can be assigned per form - If you have another level of reviewer (i.e., reviewer -> ADC -> DC), you will want your first-level reviewers to type their comments and ratings into a Word doc and send that to the final reviewer before the DC to copy/paste/modify into form. If you have multiple reviewers who work together prior to the DC, choose one of them to be the “recording” reviewer.

List of Statuses

Status Legend - Coming soon to Faculty Evaluation Summary system app

• Archived - Completed (Dean has signed)
• Not Started - No form has been created yet
• Created - Evaluation year assigned, reviewer possibly assigned, waiting to be reviewed
• In Review - Reviewer has started working on the form
• Department Chair Review - Dept Chair has started working on the form
• Faculty Review - Sent to faculty, awaiting faculty signature
• Awaiting Dean's signature (also called Faculty Accepted - signed by faculty, no conference requested)
• DC Conference - Awaiting conference with Dept Chair (DC should contact faculty member to schedule conference - conference report may be attached and changes to summary form can be made after conference; sent to faculty for acknowledgement when DC submits the form again after the meeting)
• Dean Conference - Awaiting conference with Dean (Dean should contact faculty member to schedule conference; Dean's signature required upon completion)
• Dean Confirmation - Faculty has received Overall Rating of Does Not Meet; Dean decides whether to send forward to faculty or return to DC with notes first (faculty has not seen this yet, so please expedite)

New Features

• Reporting Year - You will find this at the top of many pages; be sure you have chosen the correct year before you look for or modify anything. The “reporting year” is the year when the Summary Form is being written.
• Reports - You can view the evaluation status for everyone in your department(s) (it is also planned that those who have appropriate access can click on completed forms here to view them). For DC’s, this is under the Dept menu (“Department Summary”) and for Deans under Reports.
• Faculty Search - You can search for and view (if you have appropriate access) previous Summary Forms for individual faculty. Once faculty have multiple years in the system, you can view them here.
• Significantly improved Sort/Search for DC’s, Deans - On your “Home” page, you can sort your list of faculty by clicking on the column title (“Status”, for example); now, this sort will be persistent, so it will still hold after you work on forms and come back to this page. You can also filter the list using the drop-down boxes under the column titles (to work on your adjunct faculty in Year 3, for example).
• Instructional Evaluation of Deans and Dept Chairs - Deans are evaluated like adjunct faculty, but after the DC signs off, it goes to AVC for final approval. For the DC, the Dept Chair assigns a revier (not themself); when the reviewer finishes, it goes to the Dean for changes and final rating, and to the AVC for final sign-off/approval.

Even Newer Features

• Shorter signature workflow for Deans: We have shortened Deans’ signing workflow. They no longer go into Box Sign to sign, but just sign in the form itself at the bottom when choosing contract length and approval. (The finalized pdf form will be generated afterwards.)
• Saved signatures (Department Chairs/Deans): After signing the first form this semester, you will see a button under the signature box to Save Signature. Click on that and next time, rather than signing again, you can click on Use Saved. (If you have an iPad or a tablet, use that to save your signature the first time.)
• View previous evaluations (Department Chairs/Reviewers): While working on a form, there is a drop-down at the top of the form for Previous Evaluations that allows you to open that faculty member’s former summary forms in another window. When the Department Chair or the Evaluation Assistant assigns a reviewer, they can check next to Review Previous Evals to allow the reviewer to view previous summary forms for that faculty member.
• Timing for rollover of unsigned forms (Deans): In an effort to simplify things, any forms sent to faculty but not yet signed after the deadline will be moved forward to the Deans for “signature without acknowledgment” at the beginning of December.

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Even Newer Features (continued)

• Defaults (Department Chairs/Evaluation Assistants):
• When creating a new form, if the faculty member was evaluated last year, the “Evaluation Year” will default to the next year of the cycle. If this is incorrect or needs to be changed, you can easily choose a different year at this point.
• When the Dept Chair enters new departmental weightings for the year, it will list the weightings from the previous year for that dept as defaults. Again, you can easily change these if necessary.
• Contract Length of “Not Applicable” (Deans): This is provided for Temporary Emergency Hires or other special cases where contract length does not apply for full-time faculty.
• Internal Messaging is more visible (Department Chairs, Reviewers, Deans): When a Reviewer sends an internal message to the Dept Chair (or vice versa) or the Dept Chair sends a message to the Dean (or vice versa), some people weren’t seeing these (they were hard to notice). The most recent of these messages now appear at the top of the form (under a “Notes” heading), as well as further down where they were before.

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Student Feedback & Faculty Response: ��Course Evaluation Ratings

• Use new Course Evaluation ratings starting with 2025-2026 evaluations
• New Summary forms allow entry of each modality separately or combination into a single rating
• Low Response - Interpret ratings with caution - New criteria (Summary form no longer uses “Not statistically valid”):

For any class sections where the total number of student responses is less than 20% of the class enrollment or 3 responses, whichever is higher, only student comments and answers to individual questions will be considered in the Student Feedback and Faculty Reflection rating; the overall rating for that class section will not be considered. �

Some links you might find helpful

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• Faculty Summary Evaluation system web-app info - link
• Faculty Evaluation Manual - link
• Faculty Evaluation Website - link
• Departmental Policies and Rubrics - link
• Student Course Evaluation revisions (includes text of new surveys and info on new ratings) - link
• Faculty Evaluation Quick Info (includes info on how departments can collect Evaluation materials from faculty) - link
• Computing the Overall Rating - link (spreadsheet)
• Contact us if you would like access to our Testing System to experiment in a “sandbox” that doesn’t connect to the official one.
• Slide deck explaining evaluation process for all faculty - link

The New Faculty Evaluation Ratings

ACC Exemplary Teaching and Faculty Expectations Have Been Met

Approaching ACC Exemplary Teaching and Faculty Expectations

Does Not Meet ACC Faculty Expectations (PIP required)

Performance Improvement �Plans - link

Computing the Overall Rating�link (spreadsheet)

Student Feedback & Faculty Response: ��

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Three components to the Student Feedback and Faculty Response rating:

• Student Course Evaluation Ratings
• Student Comments
• Faculty Response (From Faculty Reflection Forms)

Additional Considerations:

• Give thought to how you will combine these components together so it can be consistent
• Participants in the Fall 2024 Pilot - These faculty may choose to have their Pilot results omitted. Even if they are not omitted, the Pilot surveys were not rated.
• There will be new student course evaluations beginning in Fall 2025.

Make notes on your process!

• What went well? What did not go well?
• What changes do you need to make to your department’s process for next year?
• What changes do you need to make to your departmental rubric for next year?
• What did you like about the new process?
• Are there parts of the new process that were problematical for you?
• Do you have recommendations for the Faculty Evaluation Steering Committee?
• They will put out a call for suggestions after the fall semester
• The committee can vote to tweak the overall process on a yearly basis
• Major changes aren’t likely until the process review after 5 years

Demonstration

of Summary eApp

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Dr. Marcus McGuff

Formative Evaluation

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Dr. Theresa Glenn

The �Evaluation Process as Documentation

Use Faculty Evaluations to document what faculty are doing:

• Positives - document departmental expertise and contributions to the college
• Problems/issues - document problems when they first appear; clarifies expectations for faculty and allows time to address issues
• Support/training - helps with planning for faculty development for individuals and your department
• Document for the benefit of future Department Chairs and continuity of leadership

Supporting a Growth Mindset Culture

• SACSCOC requirement
• Systematic and regular review
• Retention
• Program participation (Sabbatical)
• Improvement of teaching and learning
• Professional growth and development

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• The purpose of faculty evaluation is to support exemplary teaching through a process that is transparent, fair, formative, and results in actionable information faculty can use for continuous enhancement of teaching and student learning and success for all students.

Reasons to conduct reviews

Exemplary Teaching Statement

ACC faculty are committed to exemplary teaching that engenders equity and student success and is guided by ACC Faculty Values.

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Intentionally using innovative, evidence-based teaching practices, faculty creatively foster critical thinking, student engagement, learning, persistence, achievement, and sense of purpose. While cultivating a culture of belonging and inclusiveness for all students, faculty pursue excellence and continuous improvement in course design, teaching strategies, assessment and feedback, and student learning.

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To meet the highest level of exemplary practice, faculty seek out new strategies to intentionally nurture and respect learners’ strengths, interests, needs, and cultures. Faculty commit to continuous mastery of their disciplines and teaching pedagogy as well as engagement in ongoing reflective practices in support of lifelong learning.

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Formative vs Summative Evaluation

Benefits of Formative Evaluation

• Fosters collaboration
• Sparks innovation and continuous improvement
• Builds trust
• Leads to enhanced teaching performance

Formative Feedback Key Principles - Brene Brown

1. Clear is Kind; Unclear is Unkind
2. Sit Next to Someone, Not Across from Them.
3. Embrace Vulnerability
4. Normalize Discomfort
5. Ask yourself:
1. Am I ready to ‘sit side by side?”
2. Can I put the problem in front of us, not between us?
3. Am I prepared to acknowledge strengths as well as challenges?
4. Am I willing to accept my role in the situation and model vulnerability?

Key Practices

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• Positive, strength based
• Specific, behavior-focused language
• Clear expectations
• Actionable, set goals
• Avoid negative You-statements; Use I-statements
• Use collaborative language

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❌Punitive: “You failed to engage your students; your lectures are boring.”

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✅ Formative: “I see that your course shows strengths in [X - content]. To increase student engagement, try adding [specific strategy - a Kahoot poll or Whiteboard activity] in at least 3 future lessons this semester.”

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❌Punitive: “You lack flexibility with your students when they need it.”

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✅ Formative: “I noticed you spend hours preparing for your courses and providing feedback so you obviously care about your students. For next semester, let’s explore your course syllabus to identify ways that you can show you care through your course policies”

Exemplary Teaching Statement

ACC faculty are committed to exemplary teaching that engenders equity and student success and is guided by ACC Faculty Values.

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Intentionally using innovative, evidence-based teaching practices, faculty creatively foster critical thinking, student engagement, learning, persistence, achievement, and sense of purpose. While cultivating a culture of belonging and inclusiveness for all students, faculty pursue excellence and continuous improvement in course design, teaching strategies, assessment and feedback, and student learning.

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To meet the highest level of exemplary practice, faculty seek out new strategies to intentionally nurture and respect learners’ strengths, interests, needs, and cultures. Faculty commit to continuous mastery of their disciplines and teaching pedagogy as well as engagement in ongoing reflective practices in support of lifelong learning.

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Ground Feedback in Exemplary Teaching Statement and Values

❌ Poor Feedback:� "You don't really work well with others in the department."

✅ Revised Formative Feedback:� "I encourage you to find more opportunities to engage in collaborative efforts within the department or join college-wide committees like the FDEC or Faculty Senate. That could enhance your communication skills while also contributing to our culture of service and collaboration."

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❌ Poor Feedback:� "Your teaching could use some improvement."

✅ Revised Formative Feedback:� "While your course materials are well organized, student engagement could benefit from incorporating more active learning strategies. Participating in the TLA or observing a colleague’s class may offer new approaches to deepen student success and reflect our values of teaching and lifelong learning."

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Formative evaluation means giving feedback that helps faculty grow. It isn’t just a final rating – it’s ongoing and developmental. Formative evaluations lead to life-long learning, empower faculty and enhance student success.

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Thank You!

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We appreciate all the dedicated work and planning of everyone who helped us develop this new process. We also recognize the time and hard work being put in by faculty, department chairs, and deans as we begin this change. We hope this will lead to a faculty evaluation process that is more meaningful to everyone.