The Teaching Quality Framework Initiative (TQF) has developed a toolkit of resources for departmental change efforts related to transforming teaching evaluation. This Toolkit is meant to provide institutions and departments with tools and guidance to help them engage in a process of teaching evaluation transformation without the direct support of a group like the TQF. The Toolkit is designed to have two major sections: one aimed at departments and faculty members engaging in the transformation process, and one aimed at institutions looking to support this type of work. At the moment we are focusing on the departmental / faculty level resources of the toolkit. While this section, along with an overview section that provides an introduction and background on TQF and teaching evaluation, are still a work in progress, we are making it available in its beta form.
Transforming Teaching Evaluation: A Toolkit of Resources for Departmental Level Change (aka TQF Departmental Toolkit) [beta draft 12-2021] (see below for a description).
Transforming Teaching Evaluation: A Toolkit of Resources for Institutional Transformation (forthcoming)
Please note we will periodically replace this file as revisions are made. If you share the Toolkit, we ask that you share the link to this webpage rather than to the file itself.
Questions or feedback on this toolkit can be directed to Sarah Andrews at sarah.andrews-1@colorado.edu.
This teaching evaluation toolkit provides resources and guidance for departments that are interested in assessing teaching in more robust ways. The toolkit draws from the work of the TQF at the University of Colorado Boulder, and is designed to help individuals, groups, and departments understand and implement more transparent and scholarly approaches to quality teaching assessment, both for formative development of teaching and for summative teaching evaluation for merit, reappointment, promotion, and tenure processes.
As part of a broader multi-institution consortium (TEval) and a growing national dialogue (e.g., National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [NASEM], 2018; President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2012; Seymour & Hewitt, 1997), the TQF uses a common scholarly framework (TQF framework model and rubric) to help departments make improvements to the ways teaching is evaluated. Departments are a key unit for change within research universities, as they can impact multiple scales (e.g., individual faculty members, the department as a whole, and upper administration) (Bradforth et al., 2015; Henderson, Beach, & Finkelstein, 2011; Marbach-Ad, Hunt, & Thompson 2020). However, institutional context varies and the location for successful change initiatives may differ depending on local context (e.g., the dean level may be even more essential at many smaller institutions). We believe that any unit interested in making changes to improve evaluation of teaching will find these departmental level processes and resources useful.
In the included sections, departments will find tools and processes to adapt/adopt to lead their teaching evaluation transformation efforts. We anticipate that a working group of faculty within a department could use this toolkit in a variety of ways. Some could follow it sequentially to develop a working group and overhaul their teaching evaluation systems, while others could jump directly to specific sections of interest.
We expect that departments that engage in the work of improving their teaching evaluation practices could also see longer term outcomes such as increased value of (and rewards for) high quality teaching, increased use of evidence-based and inclusive teaching practices, improved student learning outcomes, and improved practices for hiring decisions.
While this Toolkit focuses on resources for departments engaged in this work, because we acknowledge that it will be important for any departmental level efforts to be connected to campus-level work, an institutional level toolkit that focuses on guidance for campus / system level transformation of teaching evaluation is forthcoming.