Penultimate Draft

Throughout Phase 1, the team has been guided by several key commitments, which are fundamental to the penultimate draft framework. These include:

• SLU’s Catholic, Jesuit identity – our values as an institution and our identity as a Jesuit university inform all three dimensions of the current framework draft.

• Research – both the multi-faceted research on teaching and from the learning sciences. All of the practices described in the draft framework are supported by research, including the practices listed as Mission-Aligned.

• A comprehensive and growth-oriented conception of the work of “teaching” – that is, attention to the often-invisible work of teaching (such as course design and preparation, development and growth over time). The draft framework conceives of teaching as the various kinds of work that happens before, during, and after courses. And it foregrounds the idea that teaching is a living, evolving process. We heard from many stakeholders that any SLU framework must take an expansive approach to defining effective teaching and must prioritize growth over time, since students, disciplines, and research findings all change over time.

• An expansive conception of the ways in which instructors might demonstrate their alignment with the essential practices – that is, making sure the essential practices are framed broadly enough that there are multiple ways instructors could enact those practices and multiple types of evidence that could be used to demonstrate one’s effectiveness as an instructor. 

Overview

The penultimate draft framework highlights essential elements of effective teaching that, together, demonstrate an instructor’s deep care and respect for students and for the work of teaching.

Like the prototype drafts shared earlier this year, this draft is grounded in the assumption that care for teaching is demonstrated through reflective practice, continuous learning, and evidence-based approaches to instruction. (Evidence-based instruction is attentive both to published scholarship on teaching and to evidence drawn from one’s own courses.) While there are many other facets of effective teaching, these represent what we believe all teaching at SLU should aspire to.

For the purposes of this framework, teaching encompasses all the work instructors do: selecting content, designing courses, teaching lessons, assessing learning, making changes to courses/curricula over time, etc. While teaching includes a broad range of intangible commitments, any use of a teaching effectiveness framework to evaluate teaching must focus on demonstrable, observable actions and behaviors.

Process for Creating This Draft

This draft was developed in response to SLU community feedback about three prototype drafts in early spring 2025. Feedback on the prototypes was collected via electronic survey and feedback sessions with the Teaching Effectiveness Project Teaching Advocates and Equity Advocates. (You may read about the role of advocates in the project on the TEP website.)

In general, there was a lot of consensus among community members about the three prototypes. While different people had different preferences, the team was able to identify key patterns that informed the development of the penultimate draft. These included: 

• Appreciation for grounding the frameworks in institutional values, identity, and mission

• Support for – and concerns about possible external pressures on – inclusion and equity as connected to our Catholic, Jesuit identity and the research on learning

• Appreciation for the practical nature of the frameworks, in particular the inclusion of specific examples of representative behaviors and of the types of evidence instructors might point to when demonstrating their effectiveness as teachers

• Desire for simplicity, to the extent possible, particularly in the presentation of the framework

• Clarity about the ways in which framework elements are interconnected and the meaning of key terms in the frameworks

• Value of ensuring the framework is transparent and achievable, which supports greater equity across instructors

Rather than refining an existing prototype, the team opted to develop a new draft that attempted to strengthen the things community members liked about individual prototypes and the prototypes as a set.

The draft framework is animated by SLU’s Catholic, Jesuit values and grounded in current literature on effective teaching and the learning sciences. It offers an aspirational view of the work of effective teaching, toward which all instructors at SLU should be striving. It also offers a scaffold to which developmental milestones may be mapped. 

How to Read the Draft Framework

The framework is presented in two related formats: a high-level graphical version and a more detailed table version. It also is accompanied by a glossary of key terms, and a set of references that support the inclusion of key elements of the framework.

The framework centers on three dimensions of effective teaching for Saint Louis University: 

• Learning-Focused

• Mission-Aligned

• Growth-Oriented

For each dimension, the draft framework offers:

• A brief definition (the italicized content just below each column heading), to convey succinctly the most important aspect of each dimension

• A list of essential practices, which serve as broad, overarching behaviors that, together, form the essential elements of each dimension. All instructors at SLU should aim to adopt all essential practices, even if they are still maturing in their instruction. The essential practices are written broadly on purpose, to leave ample room for many different instructional methods and ways of enacting the key dimensions of effective teaching

• A set of representative examples that offer insight into just some of the more concrete ways effective instructors might enact the essential practices in their own courses and instructional contexts

Finally, the framework rests on a set of foundational practices, which serve as a set of minimum teaching activities established by the Faculty Manual and other University and academic unit policies. These should be understood as baseline activities that do not themselves constitute effective teaching, but without which it is not possible to gauge effectiveness.

A Note about the Interconnectedness of the Three Dimensions

The framework is presented in a table format, arranged horizontally as a way to indicate that no one dimension is more important than the others. As the high-level graphical version of the framework makes clear, the three dimensions are dynamic parts of a larger whole. It is important to note the three dimensions of effective teaching intersect and reinforce one another. For example, research on learning indicates that inclusive teaching practices can both support students’ sense of belonging in a course (mission-aligned) and improve student learning (learning-focused). 

How the Framework Might Inform Teaching Evaluation

Once SLU has adopted a common framework, that framework will be customized at the department/college level (likely in the form of a rubric) to allow for disciplinary specificity and to support the evaluation of teaching. Ultimately, the adopted framework will guide individual instructors’ development and growth, annual reviews of teaching, tenure and promotion standards, and institutional recognitions of effective teaching.

The focus of this draft framework is a set of characteristics of effective teachers. Its contents cannot be limited to a single course or a single set of courses in a given semester. Thus, if this framework were adopted by the University, it would create the foundation to evaluate instructors on their teaching, both within a given academic term/year and over the course of several or many academic years.

A Word about Sources of Evidence

Once a framework has been approved, the next phase of the Teaching Effectiveness Project will be to arrive at an agreed-upon system of evaluation for teaching, which will involve the adaptation of the framework into rubrics. Those rubrics likely will allow for some disciplinary customization (e.g., additional required elements, specific required behaviors).

In order to implement a new system of evaluation, the University also will need to establish guidelines for the kinds of evidence that would be necessary to document one’s teaching effectiveness. Because the dimensions intersect one another, the same artifacts or evidence may be used to demonstrate one’s effectiveness in multiple dimensions. Examples of commonly-used evidence of teaching effectiveness include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Course Artifacts, such as syllabi, Canvas sites, assignment prompts, rubrics, and more. These may be from a single course or multiple courses, depending on the nature of the evaluation.

• Evidence of Student Learning, including pattern analysis of students’ performance on exams, essays, projects, and more. This may come from a single course or multiple courses.

• Feedback on Teaching, from students, disciplinary peers (within or outside of the University), supervisors (chairs, deans, etc.), and colleagues with specific areas of expertise (such as those in the Reinert Center)

• Self-Evaluation, typically in written form and referencing course artifacts, student learning, feedback on teaching, and professional development experiences

• Professional Development Activities, typically referenced as part of one’s review and accompanied by reflection on lessons learned, strategies applied, etc.

All of these sources of evidence would be useful in documenting one’s alignment with a framework such as the one presented here as a penultimate draft.