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Guide to Promotion and Tenure - Teaching

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Teaching

In This Section

Expectations
Recordkeeping 
Evaluation of Teaching
Identifying Potential Problems

Expectations

The criteria for evaluation of teaching apply to all faculty members involved in research and teaching at the University of Oregon. Depending on the faculty member's particular assignment, some criteria will be emphasized and others may not be applicable. Faculty members with tenured and tenure-related appointments are expected to excel inall the areas listed below. The university will consider those criteria listed below that are appropriate to a particular faculty appointment in evaluating tenure-related faculty, recognizing that in different settings the criteria may be weighted differently. For details you should consult the promotion and tenure criteria for your department:

  • Classroom instruction, including presentation of course materials and effectiveness of presentations
    • Large predominately undergraduate classes
    • Small upper division and graduate classes
  • Academic advising, mentorship, consultation, and informal teaching at all levels
  • Stimulation of student interest in doing high quality work
  • Supervision of student research
    • Post-doctoral
    • Ph.D.
    • Master's
    • Professional student

  • Revision of courses to keep them updated
  • Advising on independent studies projects
  • Serving on examination committees
  • Maintenance of appropriate standards of student performance
  • Evaluation of student performance
  • Interest in effective teaching techniques
  • Defining educational objectives and developing teaching and evaluative materials reflecting current scholarship in the discipline and in educational theory
  • Lecture, discussion, seminar, lab, or studio formats
  • Curriculum development

You are expected to be thoroughly familiar with scholarship in your discipline and about current ideas on teaching effectiveness. You must develop course content for your classes, as well as techniques of presentation and evaluation that reflect your knowledge. Course materials must be presented carefully and clearly - the myriad of ways a faculty member's own research and scholarship is brought to bear in the classroom is an important characteristic of university level teaching. "Learning from creative scholars" is why students study at research universities and you should strive to live up to that expectation. You must stimulate students to do high quality work and are expected to show a sustained interest in effective teaching techniques and to revise courses to keep them up to date both in content and in effectiveness of presentation. You have to establish appropriate measures for student evaluation and set appropriate standards for that evaluation. Additionally, you are expected to do academic advising, consultation, informal teaching, and supervision of student research. Finally, you must build a record of evidence of your achievement in all of these areas. Your attitude as you approach these responsibilities will affect success. All members or our university community must regard our students as our primary constituency, as individuals whose needs are of the highest priority and who must be served in a caring, welcoming way.

 

Recordkeeping   Back to top

While your department will maintain records about much of your teaching responsibilities and achievements, you too should keep a thorough record:

  • Keep a list of all formal courses that you teach, or co-teach.
  • Keep a file of individual tutoring and supervision of independent studies and research.
  • Keep a record of theses and orals committees on which you have served (undergraduate honors theses, M.A. theses, oral qualifying examinations, doctoral dissertations) in and outside of your department or on other campuses.
  • Keep qualitative records that attest to your attention to teaching: course outlines or syllabi, reading lists, evidence of work in the development of new courses and new methods, and work on textbooks published or unpublished. If you have spent time on curriculum development in your department, be sure you or the department has evidence for that activity.
  • Keep a record of any joint publication you do with students and of any student publications that stem from work with you.
  • Keep a record of the professional status of former students.
  • Encourage students to sign course evaluation narratives. Only signed evaluations may be used as evidence of teaching performance, so let your students know the importance of signing those evaluations, remind them that you will not see them until after grades have been submitted.

Evaluation of Teaching  Back to top

Formal Evaluation 

Student Evaluations The regular evaluation of a faculty member's teaching performance by students is required by the state board's rules and university legislation. The regulations require that evaluative data provided by students include 1) results from quantitative questionnaires and 2) signed, written student evaluations. One copy of the statistical results of each course evaluated is placed in the permanent personnel file of the person being evaluated. All signed written evaluations are also included in the promotion and tenure file. No unsigned written evaluations are included. All materials related to the evaluation of teaching are included in the promotion and tenure file, and are carefully reviewed at the department, school, and college levels.

Peer review of teaching The university has initiated a policy of peer review and evaluation of teaching in order to provide comprehensive and convergent evidence of faculty's teaching effectiveness. Each tenure-track faculty member must have at least one course evaluated by a faculty peer during each of the three years preceding the faculty member's promotion and tenure review. Each tenured faculty member with the rank of associate professor must have at least one course evaluated by a faculty peer every other year until promotion to full professor.

 

Identifying Potential Problems  Back to top

Excellence in teaching is an important factor in promotion and tenure at the University of Oregon and weighs heavily in the tenure decision. Demonstrated capability as an excellent teacher is vital to your future and is essential even inyour early years. You will want to keep this in mind as you set up your work and establish priorities for yourself. If you have concerns about your teaching effectiveness or have received poor teaching evaluations,you can take a proactive position to improve your situation or prevent it from becoming a problem:
  • Seek help in the department.
  • Seek advice from colleagues who are known to be good teachers.
  • Visit other classes.
  • Invite peer review of your classes, in addition to the required formal peer reviews.
  • Seek help in the university. The Teaching Effectiveness Program is an excellent resource (346-2184).
    • Attend the periodic seminars on aspects of university teaching sponsored by TEP.
    • Consult with the TEP coordinator about how to assess and improve your own teaching.
    • Consider having TEP videotape you teaching; then analyze that performance with the TEP coordinator.
    • Join a TEP group working on classroom performance analysis and performance.

  • Review library materials on teaching techniques.
  • Seek help from experienced colleagues at other universities who teach similar courses.
    • Find out what teaching techniques work for them.
    • Find out what readings have worked with their students.
    • Find out what different materials they have used, with what success.

If you believe you have received hostile or biased student evaluations, ask a peer to visit your class to get a professional counterbalance or consult either (or both) the Office of Academic Affairs or the Office of the Vice President for Institutional Equity and Diversity.