6. Evaluation & CPD

I see my teaching as a constant journey towards improved practice leading to improved student learning. I rely on evaluative data representing diverse perspectives to understand how (and how well) my current teaching practices are helping students achieve the learning goals I set for them. At the same time, I am constantly looking out for new ideas and evidence-based best practice that I can apply in my classroom to enhance the student learning experience.

Students

I frequently collect feedback from students via both formal and informal mechanisms. Most formally, I collect end-of-session teacher and subject evaluations. More useful, however, is feedback I collect during the session using an anonymous online survey form available as a link from the Moodle site. Students can use it at any time, and I explicitly ask for their thoughts midway through the semester. I make sure to act on student feedback by either changing or explaining my teaching practices to students in real-time. For example, in the spring session, a student informed me that they couldn’t see the lecture slides from some parts of the room and suggested that I project them to the extra screens around the room, which I did for all subsequent lectures. This type of rapid feedback-response cycle serves to both alert me to issues students are facing in the classroom and helps students feel empowered, knowing that their voices are being heard. After the mid-session feedback, I often find students will email me or speak to me directly with further thoughts and suggestions.

I also use in-class activities for real-time feedback on student learning. In nearly every lecture, I use “peer instruction” techniques (e.g., Crouch and Mazur, 2001), which involve students anonymously answering conceptual questions via personal response clickers. The distribution of the class responses lets me quickly gauge understanding of a concept and modify my lectures accordingly by either re-explaining the concept in a different way (if few students chose the correct answer), having the students discuss with one another (if many but not all students chose the correct answer), or providing a brief recap and moving on to new material (if nearly all students chose the correct answer).

Teaching team

In my first-year teaching, I am supported by a cohort of HDR students who provide marking and demonstrating support. I find their perspectives hugely valuable, and have made several changes based on their suggestions. For example, in my original implementation of the computing curriculum, all students received a peer review every week but only a subset of students received demonstrator feedback each week (on a rotating cycle). At the same time, the demonstrators were asked to spot-check the peer reviews to make sure students were taking the task seriously. This strategy was originally intended to ensure all students received some feedback but without requiring an onerous amount of marking time. However, one of my demonstrators informed me that spot-checking the peer reviews actually took nearly as much time as it would take to mark all students and seemed less useful for the students (Figure 1). After conferring with the other demonstrators (who agreed), I revamped the peer review system. We still ask the students to perform a peer review (because there are other learning goals associated with peer review), but we now also provide demonstrator feedback to all students. To do this, we use the Moodle workshop tool, which also provides students with feedback on how well their peer review aligned with the demonstrator review.

Working alongside my teaching team has also helped me improve how I train and support demonstrators. Because I teach alongside the demonstrators, I am able to observe how they interact with students. The first year we taught together, I was concerned by some of the behaviours I witnessed (for example, demonstrators solving problems for a student rather than guiding the student to solving it themselves). In response, I developed a set of Demonstrator “Dos and Don’ts” to guide their interactions with the students during the practical sessions. I also give the demonstrators individual feedback based on my own observations, and encourage them to organise teacher evaluations of their own practice.

Peers

Colleagues with no direct involvement in my teaching provide a valuable external perspective on my teaching practice, and again I make use of both formal and informal means of acquiring peer feedback. Formally, I use UOW Peer Observation of Teaching (POT) and Peer Review of Educational Practice (PREP) to gain insight into different aspects of my teaching practice. For example, in Spring 2018, I organised three formal POTs. First, I asked Dr Sasha Nikolic to observe one of my practical classes. I was facing a specific problem: trying to manage a large group of students with different backgrounds all working at different speeds during computer programming practicals. As Dr Nikolic is an expert in this space (e.g., Nikolic et al., 2018), I specifically sought his feedback and advice. He noted that while several good mechanisms were in place to help students through the practicals, the students who most needed the help were not necessarily asking for it (Figure 2). He suggested designing a milestone checklist to monitor student progress, an idea that I am planning to implement in Spring 2019.

In the same session, I organised to have one of my lectures simultaneously observed by an expert in my discipline (Dr Dominique Tanner) and one outside my discipline (Dr Kathryn Harden-Thew). The idea to do a paired observation was based on the model used by the Sheridan Center at Brown University. By simultaneously bringing together observers from multiple disciplines, the feedback comes from multiple perspectives and it becomes clear where common themes arise. This observation was also very useful, with both observers in particular noting problems with the default set-up of the interactive teaching space in Building 43. This has prompted us to start a broader discussion amongst the teaching staff in the school about how best to use the space and the technology to facilitate interactive learning in our classes.

I also value informal means of peer feedback on my teaching, and frequently make use of my colleagues’ expertise. For example, after three years of running the Wiki Project assessment described in Section 4, I have identified some aspects that aren’t achieving what I had originally intended. In March of this year, I organised a meeting with members from the former SEES first-year team to discuss what was working, what wasn’t, and what strategies I can employ to fix the problems. Over the course of an hour-long discussion, we came up with modifications that will improve the assessment while retaining the existing learning goals and structure. For example, I have found that many first-year students struggle to find journal articles and often end up relying on internet sources that are biased or unreliable. Starting in Spring 2019, the assessment will instead ask students to focus on only one journal article, selected from a subset of journals and focused on a particular theme. I will provide more explicit instruction on how to determine whether a source is reputable or not, and use of reputable sources will be one of the marking criteria.

Myself

Personal reflection is a staple of my evaluative data. I keep an electronic teaching journal (Figure 3) that I use to record notes after every teaching session (what worked well, what didn’t, what ideas I have for next time). I also record any teaching ideas that I come across when I am away from the classroom – whether from reading, discussions with colleagues, observing another teacher’s practice, or simply from thinking about my teaching while I’m running / swimming / washing dishes / commuting… As I prepare my teaching for a given lecture or practical (or a subject as a whole), I always browse through my teaching journal to make sure I act on the feedback and ideas I left for myself.

Continuing professional development

I became a scientist because I am curious about the world and love learning new things. The same curiosity and love of learning apply to teaching, and I am constantly on the lookout for new ideas and strategies that I can apply to enhance student learning. My formal professional training in teaching and learning includes:

• Introduction to High-School Science Teaching, Caltech, 2004
• Scientists Teaching Science, Harvard University, 2009
• University Learning and Teaching 1A, University of Wollongong, 2014

None of the above teaching and learning courses were required for my role at the time – rather, I chose to enrol to learn more about teaching and learning in advance of attaining a role with a significant teaching component.

Beyond these formal programs, I engage in continuing professional development in learning and teaching by attending workshops, seminars, and other short programs such as:

• the Derek Bok Centre Fall Teaching Conference for graduate students at Harvard University (during my PhD)
• the Learning and Teaching fora run by the UOW Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health
• WATTLE fora such as the 2019 Hybrid Learning @ UOW Forum
• Education and outreach sessions at disciplinary conferences such as the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting

Even less formally, I subscribe to teaching blogs and email lists such as Tomorrow’s Professor and For Those Who Teach and reading books like Teaching Undergraduate Science to refresh and enhance my knowledge of evidence-based best practice in teaching and learning.

References

Crouch, C. H., & Mazur, E. (2001). Peer instruction: Ten years of experience and results. American Journal of Physics, 69(9), 970-977.

Nikolic, S., Ros, M., & Hastie, D. B. (2018). Teaching programming in common first year engineering: discipline insights applying a flipped learning problem-solving approach. Australasian Journal of Engineering Education, 23(1), 3-14.