Peer Review of Teaching at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Abstract

This article describes how the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Peer Review of Teaching Project (PRTP)—a faculty-led initiative for discussing, developing, and assessing approaches for understanding and documenting teaching and learning—has evolved from a small grant-funded program to a thriving, institutionally supported program. It describes the evolution of the PRTP, outlines its impact on individual faculty and the institutional community, and discusses future directions in light of broader conversations about the role of peer review in postsecondary education.

Appendix

Interaction 1 Reflecting on the Syllabus—Course Overview and Portfolio Planning

This memo should provide a peer in your field of study a window on the goals, choices, and rationale that underlie the structure and planning of your course.

A. Course Overview, Goals, and Rationale

(1) What is your course?

What is your course about? What is the content area covered? Who are your students (e.g., first, second, third, fourth year, graduate majors or non-majors)? What sorts of backgrounds do students bring to your course? How does your course fit into your departmental curriculum? Does it fit into curricula in other departments? How do your goals fit with the goals of other courses in your department? Does your course lay the foundation for courses that follow it or build on what students have already learned in other courses? How is the course content connected to the goals of your major or your general education guidelines?

(2) What are your goals for the course?

What do you want students to know? What do you want them to be able to do? What do you want them to understand? What do you want them to retain from your course? What perspectives or attitudes do you want them to have? What is important for them to learn about your field? What should they learn about themselves as students or as contributors to our society? How are these goals structured into your course? Why is it necessary for your students to achieve these goals? What do you know about your students that makes these goals appropriate for their education?

B. Portfolio Goals

(1) Do you have any key goals you want to accomplish by creating a course portfolio?

What aspects of student learning and of your teaching do you want to document and address through creating this portfolio? How do you foresee using your course portfolio (e.g., document your teaching, refine a course, disseminate to other colleagues, promotion and tenure)?

(2) Why did you choose this particular course?

What is it about this particular course that led you to choose it for the portfolio project? Are there particular aspects of the course that you think are particularly noteworthy and that should be captured in the portfolio? Are there particular problems you face in this course that you would like to address in your portfolio?

(3) What sort of course portfolio would you like to create?

Is your portfolio providing a broad overview of the entire course? Is it focusing on a particular aspect of the course (e.g., exams, assignments, projects)? Is your portfolio part of a larger departmental “package” (e.g., curriculum development and analysis)?

Interaction 2 Capturing the Particulars of Instructional Practices

This memo is designed to guide your thinking about the “particulars” that demonstrate and document student learning in your course. It should outline the specific teaching methods, course materials, and course assignments you use to achieve course objectives (as described in Interaction 1), and how particular aspects of the course (e.g., class activities, assignments, and other techniques) show evidence of and allow you to monitor and help direct student learning related to your course objectives. You may choose to append any relevant materials, such as handouts, study questions, course notes, or copies of your exams. If items are attached, please include reflection on/discussion on what those items are and how they relate to your course goals and/or student learning.

(1) What teaching methods (e.g., lecture, group work, etc.) are you using during your contact time with students?

How do you use each of these methods during class time and over the course of the semester? How does each of these teaching methods facilitate students’ achievement of course objectives? How do you measure student learning via these methods?

(2) What course activities outside of class (e.g., projects, computer simulations, web exercises, practica, or group work) are you using?

Why have you structured your activities in the way that you have? What, in particular, do you hope your students will learn from each activity? What are your expectations? How do you assess student performance at these activities?

(3) What course materials (e.g., textbooks, course notes) are you using?

Why are these materials useful to students’ achievement of the course objectives? How should students use each of the course materials?

(4) What is the rationale for the methods you have chosen?

In what ways do you expect your choices for methods, materials, and assignments to assist your students in meeting the goals of your course? What influence has your discipline or field had on your choices? Why do you expect that the methods will be effective in promoting the learning you hope to achieve with these instructional practices?

(5) Course choices and the broader curriculum

How do your choices of methods, materials, and activities build upon what students have learned in previous courses? How do your choices prepare your students for the broader university and/or department curriculum? How do your choices assist students in their future courses and/or endeavors beyond graduation?

Interaction 3 Documenting and Analyzing Student Learning and Understanding

In the first two interactions, we asked you to think about your teaching as it is designed and proposed (through the syllabus) and conducted (through structured procedures and methods). For this memo we ask you to document evidence of your students’ learning/understanding/ performance and reflect upon it with respect to achieving your overall teaching goals/objectives for the course.

Please select up to three focused activities (e.g., homework assignments, examinations, projects) from your course that you would like to analyze with respect to student learning. Then discuss how well your students have met the activity’s objectives based on the evidence from the student work you’ve collected. Because the activity of teaching varies widely across disciplines and contexts, there are many different ways you can document your students’ learning. For instance, you could analyze student performance on a course assignment by identifying samples of student work that clearly represent high pass, medium pass, and low pass levels of performance. Or you could analyze student performance on an exam by focusing on select questions that you feel represent “higher order” learning in your course. Or you could select a few students and track their performance on several assignments over the course of the semester. However you choose to document your students’ learning, you should include samples of student work in conjunction with reflection about how it does or does not meet your objectives for student learning.

A. The Nature of Student Understanding

• 1. Is there evidence (as represented in their work samples) of students meeting the specific learning goals you selected? Where do you see such understanding (e.g., you could cite particular passages from a student paper or a short answer from a quiz that provides evidence of such understanding)? What criteria do you use to assess such understanding?

• 2. How does the understanding represented by the work samples you present differ among students? How do these differences relate to the criteria you use in evaluating this work? How do these criteria relate to the intellectual goals you have set for the class?

• 3. Does performance represented by student work indicate students have developed an understanding for your field of study that will be retained and/or that students can apply to new contexts? In what ways?

• 4. What does your analysis of your students’ work tell you about how students are learning ideas that are central to the course and to your teaching goals? Can you identify misconceptions they might have about these ideas? How might you identify and address these errors and/or misinterpretations?

B. Distribution of Student Performance

• 1. Given the evidence of student learning/performance documented above, what is the range or distribution for this learning within the class as a whole?

• 2. How many students out of the total class population achieved a high, middle, or low range of student learning? How might you account for this range or distribution? Are you satisfied with this range or distribution? Why or why not?

• 3. Does this range connect to your overall assumptions about the nature of student learning within this course? How might you represent this distribution of understanding to future readers of your course portfolio (i.e., via a graph or a pie chart)?

C. Student Performance and the Broader Curriculum

• 1. Overall, how well did student work meet your intellectual goals for the course? Did the distribution of student achievement meet your expectations? Why or why not?

• 2. Does the evidence of student performance you’ve documented above indicate that students are prepared for other courses or have achieved the aims of the broader curriculum? In what ways?

• 3. What does your students’ work tell you about the prior preparation they have received in your area of study?

• 4. What changes could be made to help more students achieve in the higher categories of learning? Are there particular features of the course that you would redesign? What specific changes do you plan to make in the way you teach or organize the course the next time it is offered? How do you think those changes would improve student understanding?