AY 2020/2021 Year-End Report

Our Faculty Learning Community goals at the start of the year included:

  • Fostering community and connections between RAP faculty as we continued to teach in a mix of remote, hybrid, and in-person learning settings during the COVID-19 pandemic
  • Continuing to develop appropriate assessment measures to determine if we are meeting our student learning outcomes by working with the CU Teaching Quality Framework initiative
  • Continuing to investigate evidence-based, or scholarly, teaching and learning practices

By engaging in these activities, the RAP FLC supported our RAP faculty community through the challenges posed by teaching during the pandemic while continuing our focus on teaching excellence in the RAPs.

Work Accomplished

During AY 2020/2021 the RAP FLC continued our work with the Teaching Quality Initiative (QTI). We gathered feedback on our work to date from faculty, program coordinators, and directors. We also accomplished the following specific tasks:

  • Presentation of Peer Evaluation Procedures to the RAP directors for approval with suggested revisions and FLC created addenda to cover changes in teaching due to the pandemic
  • Creation of "Assessment/Evaluation Tools" website accessible from RAP FLC website giving RAP faculty access to the evaluation protocols, procedures, and suggested guidelines
  • Creation of guidelines for requesting student letters as part of the reappointment/promotion process
  • Review of current classroom interview processes in use with an eye to providing examples on the "Assessment/Evaluation Tools" site

 

Plan for AY 2021/2022

As AY 2020/2021 came to a close, we devoted a portion of one of our final meetings to the upcoming Quality Teaching Initiative (QTI) and the policy requirement that all academic units in the College of Arts and Sciences clarify our standards and processes of teaching evaluation and its use for merit, tenure or reappointment, and promotion. It was agreed that some subset of the FLC would work on this in the upcoming academic year. The following plan of action was agreed upon at the first set of meetings of the QTI in the RAPs Working Group in September 2021.

 

Plan for Fall Semester

The QTI in the RAPs Working Group will meet four or five times in the fall semester to investigate and articulate how the work we accomplished with TQF aligns with QTI, to fill in the gaps that we do not already have covered, and to make recommendations to the directors based upon this work. Our priorities for the Fall 2021 semester include:

  • Identify where the RAP-wide learning objectives, peer evaluation protocol, student letter solicitation guidelines, and the other tools already created by the FLC line up with the three dimensions of quality teaching (inclusive, goal-oriented, and scholarly) as suggested by QTI
  • Identify any gaps in our processes or standards that still need to be addressed
  • Examine the QTI suggested rubric and begin to suggest modifications or alternatives to using this rubric in the RAPs
  • Present a plan of action to the directors

 

Plan for Spring Semester

The QTI in the RAPs Working Group will meet four or five times in the spring semester to continue fleshing out the process for communicating expectations for teaching to RAP faculty, as well as communicating how the various tools and data (peer observations, student letters, FCQs, CLIPs, FRPA, teaching and service statements, etc.) will be used in the processes for merit, reappointment, and promotions. Our priorities for the spring semester include:

  • Revise language in existing assessment tools to reflect the dimensions of quality teaching used in the A&S Policy on Teaching Quality and Associated Evaluation
  • Define and provide RAP specific examples of the three dimensions of quality teaching that are grounded in the A&S Policy on Teaching Quality and Associated Evaluation which will be made available to RAP faculty once approved
  • Examine how FRPA forms can provide data on the three dimensions of quality teaching and write a statement for faculty on the kinds of information that are important to capture on their FRPA for evaluation processes
  • Create a rubric or other tool for use during the merit, reappointment, and promotions processes for use by the RAPs subject to directors approval which will be made available to RAP faculty once approved
  • Create general process statements on merit, reappointment, and promotions for use by the RAPs subject to directors approval which will be made available to RAP faculty once approved