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University Of Kansas Center For Teaching Excellence Teval

Bonisiwe Shabane
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university of kansas center for teaching excellence teval

Since 2017, the Center for Teaching Excellence has collaborated on an initiative called TEval to foster improved methods of reviewing, documenting, and evaluating faculty teaching practices. The TEval project is organized around a rubric-based framework for documenting, reviewing and evaluating university teaching. That framework, which was developed by CTE, is known at KU as Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness. It focuses on the seven dimensions of teaching shown in the graphic above. TEval received a five-year grant from the National Science Foundation (DUE-1726087) in 2017 and ended that phase of the project in 2023. TEval includes KU, the University of Colorado, Boulder, and the University of Massachusetts, which all worked with departments and institutional leaders on creating a fairer, more nuanced approach to evaluating teaching.

A fourth partner, Michigan State University, studied the change process at the other universities. (Read more about KU's continuing work below.) An accessible version of the documents on this site will be made available upon request. Contact cte@ku.edu to request the document be made available in an accessible format. Universities like KU have traditionally relied on methods for evaluating teaching that prioritize a narrow dimension of teaching activity (the behavior of the instructor in the classroom) and a limited source of evidence (student... TEval at The University of Kansas is based on Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness and is led out of KU’s Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE).

University policy requires multiple sources of information for teaching evaluation, therefore the primary focus of the KU project is on developing structures, procedures, and expectations that support more meaningful implementation of the policies. The effort began in 2015 when the CTE developed the Benchmarks rubric (Greenhoot et al., 2020) in response to growing faculty dissatisfaction with teaching evaluation practices, along with widening faculty participation in educational transformation. The Benchmarks rubric was built on a model of teaching as inquiry (e.g., Bernstein, 2008) that had guided CTE programs for years; the rubric translated those ideals into transparent expectations about effective teaching and... As the hub of KU’s TEval implementation, the CTE supports departments in carrying out the iterative process while also collaborating with university leadership and governance structures to move towards institutionalization of a transformed approach. To ensure readiness and broad engagement, departments are selected through a competitive proposal process that prioritizes clear support from the department chair and broad faculty participation. Departments identify a project leader and a team of three or more faculty members to carry out the work.

The CTE supports department-level work through: To date, 12 STEM and non-STEM departments in three cohorts have adapted and used the rubric and built consensus around it. Although all departments are working towards use of the rubric for promotion and tenure (P&T) evaluations, they vary in their starting points. Some have already implemented it in the P&T context (for department-level evaluation, or peer- or self-reviews that become part of the P&T package), whereas others are first using it in lower-stakes or formative settings,... The CTE has also worked with administrators to align new requirements, recommendations, and infrastructure (e.g., requirements for the timing and quality of peer reviews, an online system for annual evaluation of contingent faculty and... Additionally, participants and leaders in the Benchmarks initiative are serving on steering committees charged by the Provost Office and Faculty Governance to reconsider P&T guidelines on teaching and appropriate uses of student ratings.

University of Kansas/Center for Teaching Excellence/TEval University of Kansas/Center for Teaching Excellence Contact: Andrea Greehoot (agreenhoot@ku.edu) Part of: TEval: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Kansas, University of Massachusetts at Amherst University of Kansas's (KU's) Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) has designed a multidimentional rubric, professional development sequences, and other informational resources that departments can adapt to best suit their disciplines and structures in order... The KU Center for Teaching Excellence is collaborating on a five-year project, called TEval, supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF; DUE-1726087) to foster improved methods of reviewing, documenting and evaluating...

The project involves working with departments and with institutional leaders to adapt and implement a rubric-based framework for documenting, reviewing and evaluating university teaching. The project is organized around the Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness framework developed by KU's Center for Teaching Excellence, and parallel frameworks at the other institutions. The KU Center for Teaching Excellence has developed a framework called Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness to support better methods of reviewing, documenting, and evaluating teaching. The framework is organized around a multidimensional rubric for reviewing faculty teaching. Learn more about the KU Benchmark Framework at their website. Starting from the KU Benchmark Framework, departments across the University of Kansas have developed their own rubrics; many of which can be accessed directly, below.

Benchmarks in Brief provides a quick overview of the framework/rubric used in the TEval efforts at KU. Sociology Rubric for Department Evaluation and Development of Graduate Student Teaching Sociology Rubric for Graduate Student Self-Reflection The spread of evidence-based teaching practices highlights a growing paradox: Even as instructors work to evaluate student learning in creative, multidimensional ways, they themselves are generally judged only through student evaluations. CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Faculty members seem ready for a more substantive approach to evaluating teaching, but …

A recent meeting at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine achieved little consensus on how best to evaluate teaching, but it certainly showed a widespread desire for a fairer system that better... The overarching goal of this project is to advance educational practices by creating, aligning and sustaining effective evaluation strategies that promote the use of evidence-based instructional strategies. We simultaneously seek to advance understanding of the institutional change process by studying the adoption and integration of new approaches to evaluating teaching. Much of the recent work of STEM education researchers and change agents has focused on promoting the widespread use of evidence-based educational practices (NASEM 2012, and 2018). This includes major initiatives from agencies such as the National Science Foundation (National Science Foundation, 2013) and the Association of American Universities. Increasing the use of evidence-based educational practices (EBEPs) in STEM undergraduate education requires explicit support and reward for faculty who embrace these practices.

Indeed, the absence of such a reward system is a commonly-cited barrier to faculty adoption of EBEPs (Fairweather, 2008). In turn, recognizing and supporting faculty requires valid and reliable ways to evaluate teaching practices, a process that few universities employ. Change theory showing the link between evaluation of teaching and the widespread use of evidence-based educational practices (EBEPs). This project is operating at the intervention stage. Evaluation of teaching has long relied primarily on student surveys about their experiences; a process commonly known as student evaluation of teaching (Seldin, 1998). Promotion, tenure, and merit processes have been structured around this single method of evaluating teaching while faculty research is evaluated through much broader and more thorough means (e.g., research portfolios, external peer review).

These evaluation and reward practices are part of an interconnected cultural web that defines norms, sets standards, and guides practices within universities (Ann E Austin, 2011). Therefore, achieving widespread change -- in this case, in the way teaching is evaluated -- requires efforts to transform university culture at the department, college and campus levels. In this project, three of the PIs (Finkelstein, Greenhoot, Weaver) actively lead this cultural change on their own university campuses, working toward the development, adoption and sustainable use of new approaches to evaluating teaching. A fourth PI (Austin) studies the process of transformation within and across the three campuses, creating case studies examining what approaches work most effectively under what circumstances. An external evaluator (Graham) serves to provide formative and summative feedback on the project development. CTE strives to foster an intellectual community of instructors dedicated to improving their teaching practices and increasing student learning.

TEval is an NSF funded push to transform higher education. We're advancing understandings of institutional change processes by studying and supporting the adoption and integration of new approaches to evaluating teaching. Three institutions (UMass, KU, and CU) are incubating specific strategies and processes for effecting change. Cross-case comparisons (from MSU) examine how these strategies and processes interact with different institutional cultures. Check out our forthcoming book from Harvard Education Press (Fall 2025): Transforming College Teaching Evaluation: A Framework for Advancing Instructional Excellence TEval utilizes numerous resources and materials for evaluating teaching and facilitating departmental and institutional change.

These include: On this page, we highlight a few of the individual materials found in those collections, and provide descriptions of and direct links to toolkits and implementation guides that have been developed since the inception... Guide for Implementing Holistic Teaching Evaluation in UMass Departments This guide provides background information on TEval, describes related evaluation methods and teaching dimensions, and offers a process for transitioning to a holistic approach to teaching evaluation. It also includes examples of criteria for proficiency in each dimension and provides templates for organizing evidence and discussions. Found within UMass's Implementation Guide are Teaching Analysis Templates, Step-Wise Processes for Implementing Change, Schedules for Holistic Evaluation, and much more.

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Since 2017, the Center for Teaching Excellence has collaborated on an initiative called TEval to foster improved methods of reviewing, documenting, and evaluating faculty teaching practices. The TEval project is organized around a rubric-based framework for documenting, reviewing and evaluating university teaching. That framework, which was developed by CTE, is known at KU as Benchmarks for Teachi...

A Fourth Partner, Michigan State University, Studied The Change Process

A fourth partner, Michigan State University, studied the change process at the other universities. (Read more about KU's continuing work below.) An accessible version of the documents on this site will be made available upon request. Contact cte@ku.edu to request the document be made available in an accessible format. Universities like KU have traditionally relied on methods for evaluating teachin...

University Policy Requires Multiple Sources Of Information For Teaching Evaluation,

University policy requires multiple sources of information for teaching evaluation, therefore the primary focus of the KU project is on developing structures, procedures, and expectations that support more meaningful implementation of the policies. The effort began in 2015 when the CTE developed the Benchmarks rubric (Greenhoot et al., 2020) in response to growing faculty dissatisfaction with teac...

The CTE Supports Department-level Work Through: To Date, 12 STEM

The CTE supports department-level work through: To date, 12 STEM and non-STEM departments in three cohorts have adapted and used the rubric and built consensus around it. Although all departments are working towards use of the rubric for promotion and tenure (P&T) evaluations, they vary in their starting points. Some have already implemented it in the P&T context (for department-level evaluation, ...

University Of Kansas/Center For Teaching Excellence/TEval University Of Kansas/Center For

University of Kansas/Center for Teaching Excellence/TEval University of Kansas/Center for Teaching Excellence Contact: Andrea Greehoot (agreenhoot@ku.edu) Part of: TEval: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Kansas, University of Massachusetts at Amherst University of Kansas's (KU's) Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) has designed a multidimentional rubric, professional development sequ...