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UCB #3
CCHE Quality Indicator System (QIS)
CU-Boulder Fall 1998 Submission
CU-Boulder local indicator 3: Teaching: Valuing, encouraging, and delivering high
quality teaching
| Evaluation: CU-Boulder demands high quality,
effective teaching and allocates substantial resources to the ongoing improvement
of teaching by faculty, instructors, and graduate teaching assistants.
We pay serious attention to evidence about student learning, satisfaction,
and success after graduation. We examine student ratings of instruction
every term and use the results for salary, promotion, and tenure decisions.
While we are pleased with students' satisfaction with instruction, we regard
improvement of teaching as a continuing commitment. |
| UCB3a |
Programs devoted to support of teaching |
- CU-Boulder's long-standing, nationally-known
Faculty Teaching
Excellence Program (FTEP) offers faculty members the opportunity to
improve their teaching by learning from their peers. FTEP sposors a lecture
series, symposia, workshops, one-on-one videotape consultations, and written
publications.
- Teaching assistants and graduate part-time instructors
improve their teaching skills under the direction of professor-mentors.
The Graduate Teacher Program,
also nationally known, offers instruction in teaching methods, testing,
and grading.
- The President's Teaching Scholars are distinguished teachers and scholars who assist other
faculty members in a variety of ways.
- Several groups, from students to the faculty assembly, offer annual monetary prizes for good teaching.
- Technology support for faculty members assures that use of
technology enhances teaching and learning.
- Engineering's Integrated Teaching and Learning Lab
(ITLL) is designed expressly to make good teaching, and good learning, easier.
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| UCB3b |
Programs bringing faculty with diverse backgrounds to the classroom |
- CU-Boulder students benefit from the diverse
backgrounds of campus faculty, including 375 foreign scholars on campus
each year, many recently hired faculty of color and women faculty, and
professionals in business, journalism, law, music, and other fields who
teach classes and mentor students.
- Two programs, the chancellor's fellowship and special
opportunity hiring, help departments in hiring women and new faculty members
of color, where we complete with other leading national universities. Almost
50% of recent faculty hires have been women, with 20-30% faculty of color.
- The Regents are currently considering a new faculty
title, "professor in residence," which will be used to hire into non-tenure
track professorial positions individuals who have appropriate degrees but
who have developed expertise in business, engineering, government, K12
education, or the arts.
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| UCB3c |
Collection, publication, and use of student ratings of instruction |
- Through our faculty
course questionnaire (FCQ) students rate their courses and instructors
every term, in every course.
- Students are quite complimentary about the quality
of teaching at CU-Boulder. Almost half of grades assigned by students to
instructors are A's, and 80% are A or B.
- FCQ data are used by students to select courses, by
faculty for course improvement, and by administrators for salary, promotion,
rehire, and tenure decisions. The FCQ is a true accountability system,
ensuring that student satisfaction with courses and teaching is a critical
factor in institutional management.
- Student ratings are also used administratively outside
of promotion, tenure, and salary decisions. For instance, the dean of arts
and sciences routinely contacts departments and instructors with courses
receiving ratings of C or below, to discuss how the course can be improved.
- Students also assess overall instructional quality
and major programs, including curricula, through
senior and undergraduate
surveys. Ratings of instructional quality, especially in upper-division
courses, are uniformly high, but many students are dissatisfied with the
core curriculum. Arts and sciences faculty are currently in the process
of reviewing the core, relying heavily on results of a special fall 1997
student survey on core requirements particularly.
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| UCB3d |
Assessment of learning outcomes and use of the results in improving teaching and curricula |
See "Assessment and accountability practices at CU-Boulder,"
written for state-requested indicator 8
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| UCB3e |
Attention to teaching excellence in tenure awards |
- Evaluations of teaching, research, and service are used annually in determining salaries.
We rely on more extensive evaluations for promotion and tenure decisions, using multiple indicators
and sources to evaluate each area.
- Article X, Laws of the Regents, states that "Tenure may be awarded only to faculty members
with demonstrated meritorious performance in each of the three areas of teaching, research or
creative work, and service, and with demonstrated excellence in either
teaching or research/creative work." Over half of the 112 tenure awards made 1992-1996 were
based on demonstrated excellence in teaching; the remainder were based
on meritorious teaching plus excellent research.
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