Peer Evaluation for Purposes of Tenure and Promotion

These guidelines must be consistent with the Memorandum of Agreement - Faculty Association of the University of Waterloo (FAUW) and University of Waterloo: Policy 77 - Tenure and Promotion of Faculty Members: “If there is a conflict between the Faculty Guidelines and this Agreement (or the criteria in Policy 77), the provisions in the Agreement (or the criteria in Policy 77) shall take precedence.”

These guidelines have been designed to foster the following objectives:

  1. to ensure that the diverse efforts made by faculty members to enhance their teaching are considered in the tenure and promotion process and in annual performance reviews;
  2. to acknowledge the importance of formative teaching development rather than one that applies a purely summative evaluation;
  3. to bring clarity and transparency to the evaluation processes; and
  4. to provide guidance and support to new faculty members.

It is up to the individual faculty members to make the case for recognition of their teaching efforts. Each faculty member can make that case in a variety of ways when providing evidence of her or his strengths and quality of teaching performance. For purpose of tenure and promotion, each faculty member is required to have an arms-length evaluation of his or her teaching and a teaching portfolio. The arm-length evaluation process is described below. In addition, recommendations of the material that the candidate might wish to include in the teaching portfolio can be found in Appendix B.

Advice to the unit department or chair of steps that can be taken to assist a new faculty member with teaching when s/he arrives on campus:

  1. New faculty member is made aware of resources that could assist with their teaching and mentoring: e.g. Centre for Teaching Excellence (CTE) resources, meeting with the Teaching Fellow, meeting with the CTE-Environment Liaison, and the Faculty of Environment Teaching Handbook.
  2. With the first course that the faculty member teaches, s/he is advised to begin to gather material that might be useful for her or his teaching portfolio or annual performance review.
  3. The unit chair or director advises the faculty member on teaching progress during the annual performance review and when assigning courses.
  4. During the first two years of teaching, candidates may wish to invite a colleague who is recognized to be an effective teacher, or a member of the CTE to observe their teaching and give feedback for the purposes of formative teaching development.
  5. Following the official schedule for tenure, promotion and reappointment, the faculty member will compile his or her submission. During this process, the unit head will ask the faculty member to provide a list of three names of tenured faculty members who have had a long record of high-quality teaching who are arm’s length:
    1. from the candidate, to conduct a peer evaluation of the applicant’s teaching. Ideally, the evaluator will be in a related field to that of the candidate.
    2. The chair will select someone from that list.

The Evaluation Process

The evaluator should choose one or two of the classes when there is not a guest speaker. The choice of class will be at the discretion of the evaluator not the instructor to ensure that the evaluator experiences a typical course offering without advance notice. If it is a large lecture class, the evaluator should be unobtrusive but identify him/herself to the instructor at the end of the class. If it is a small class, when the evaluator shows up, the instructor may choose to inform the class why that person is sitting in on the seminar.

The letter of the evaluator should be based on the following information:

  1. a preliminary meeting to discuss the candidate’s teaching philosophy, course design, approach to graduate advising, and general engagement with teaching;
  2. a review of the candidate’s course syllabi;
  3. a classroom observation (see Appendix A for peer evaluation and observation)3;
  4. other materials that the candidate might wish to share at his or her discretion4.

After the evaluator finishes the review, s/he will sit down with the candidate and offer observations and suggestions with the objective of providing constructive teaching advice.

The evaluator will submit both a copy of the peer evaluation letter to the unit head and the candidate.

The candidate will have an opportunity to provide a written response to the evaluation. Both the peer evaluation letter and the candidate’s response will be included in the candidate’s file.

The peer evaluation letter, as well as the candidate’s response, will be included in the candidate’s package along with the teaching portfolio (see Appendix B) and other materials for Tenure and Promotion.

Appendix A: Instructions for Evaluators5 (to be submitted to the Environment Senior Administration Group)

Based on your readings of the course outline and other materials, your discussions with the instructor being evaluated, and your classroom observations, please write a short report that addresses each of the following topics. Please be as specific as you can. Your comments will be read by the instructor so they can benefit from your observations and advice. Your report may also be included in the Tenure and Promotion File of the instructor.

  1. Course content: Is the material covered accurate, and does it reflect current scholarship in the field? Is it appropriate to the level of the course?
  2. Course design:
    1. Are the course objectives clearly articulated? Are they appropriate to the course and its place in the program’s (or if appropriate, another) curriculum? Do they strike an appropriate balance between content and skills?
    2. Is the course schedule well suited to enable students to achieve the course objectives?
  3. Evaluations and feedback: Do the summative assignments test whether students are meeting the course objectives? Are there appropriate opportunities---in class, on low stakes assignments, on the summative assignments, or in some other manner---for students to receive useful formative feedback?
  4. Classroom teaching: Is the content presented in a way that is appropriate to the material? Is the presentation engaging? What is the quality of the interaction between the instructor and students? (You may find the attached list of “observation categories”, adapted from materials provided by the Centre for Teaching Excellence, helpful.)
  5. List of classroom observation categories6 (adapted from material provided by the CTE. Not all of these categories will be relevant to all classes, but they may serve as a useful guide to things that are worth watching for and deserving of comment).

Teacher Organization/Planning

  • The objectives of the class are clearly stated
  • The instructor’s choice of teaching techniques is appropriate for the goals of the class and course
  • The class schedule proceeds at an appropriate pace and according to a logical plan
  • The learning activities are clearly explained and completed on time
  • The key points of the class are emphasized when they arise during the class
  • Learning materials are understandable to students (e.g., visuals, online material, handouts, etc)

Delivery

  • The instructor shows appropriate mastery of the mechanics of good delivery: maintaining eye contact, speaking at an appropriate volume and rate
  • The instructor reflects enthusiasm about the subject matter
  • The instructor is knowledgeable about the subject matter
  • The instructor pitches instruction at an appropriate level for students
  • The instructor uses a variety of illustrations to teach content

Interaction and Rapport

  • The instructor helps the students to learn from each other
  • The instructor raises stimulating and challenging questions that encourage student engagement
  • The instructor welcomes student participation and perspectives
  • The instructor anticipates student problems/challenges
  • The instructor responds to questions clearly
  • The instructor provides immediate and constructive feedback where appropriate

Impact on Learning

  • The instructor helps develop the students’ problem-solving skills
  • The instructor challenges students intellectually
  • The instructor fosters the ability to engage critically with the views of others in a respectful way
  • The instructor encourages “deep learning” of the material---reflection on its significance, on how it fits with other knowledge, the way it may require confronting misconceptions, etc.

Appendix B: Environment Criteria for Teaching Assessment and Components of a Teaching Portfolio

(Approved by the Faculty of Environment Administrative Group)

The Faculty of Environment guidelines for tenure and promotion require some specified information (see Teaching/Advising Activities and promotion). In addition, however, it is up to each faculty member to provide evidence of teaching quality, keeping in mind that much of the evidence will be qualitative in nature and thus will need to be explained in the annual performance review form and in teaching portfolios.It is recommended that as soon as you begin a university career as a faculty member that you start working on your teaching portfolio. Such a portfolio would document your teaching career, and would contain your teaching philosophy, reflections, course materials, courses taught, evaluations, and other information as discussed below. You might even consider creating an e-portfolio.

For the purpose of tenure and promotion, you might want to think about producing a much more concise teaching portfolio of approximately 10 single-spaced pages in length. (Again, make sure that you check with your unit head to see if that conforms to your departmental or school’s expectations.)

A teaching portfolio contains (1) a narrative description of teaching, substantiated with concrete examples (about 5 pages) and (2) Appendices documenting the claims made in the narrative (an additional 5 pages). The narrative would consist of your philosophy of learning/teaching that includes such things as a rationale for teaching approaches, discussion of what would constitute a great teacher or advisor (of theses or major projects) and how you try to aspire to that ideal, and what you want the students to know when they leave your course or graduate. In other words, you are telling a persuasive story backed up with evidence. You need to make the case. An important part of the narrative is to recognize that you, as an effective teacher, will always be learning and improving upon your teaching. Your teaching portfolio should include some self-reflection such as how you have grown as a teacher, reflecting on challenges and problems that you have worked to overcome, as well as your teaching ambitions for the future.

A discussion of the content of your courses (illustrated in the appendices) is important as well with consideration of both the students’ learning processes, as well as learning outcomes. This description would include methodologies/strategies for learning and teaching. Examples might be your teaching approach (e.g. experiential or student-centred learning, etc.), assessment methods (backed up with a discussion of how those methods are designed to capture various types of learning), or an analysis of how you would know if you have been successful in achieving desired learning objectives.

Documentation of your teaching philosophy could contain the following. Those with an asterisk (*) are considered very important. An excellent ranking would acknowledge accomplished performance in meeting most of the following criteria:

Evidence of Impact on Learning and Evaluations: Peer and Student

  • *Student class evaluations (recognizing that large and required courses generally get lower ratings than smaller electives). The candidate may also wish to note the extra effort required when teaching courses that are considered particularly challenging.

Creativity and Initiative

  • *Evidence of creative thinking in course design and delivery: e.g. experiential, case study, case-based, on-line, blended, student-centred, integrative and/or problem-solving teaching consistent with the mandate of the Faculty of Environment. (Documentation: Pieces from the course syllabus and materials)
  • Time spent on course improvement (e.g., soliciting peer feedback on course syllabi, materials, or assignments; applying innovative or creative teaching methods)

Professional Development in Teaching

  • Participation in teaching development workshops (e.g., CTE courses), conferences and teaching seminars (faculty, annual UW OND teaching conference, or the international Teaching Professor Conference)

On-campus and on-line Availability and Participation in Student-related Events

  • Time spent above and beyond the norm to meet with students, provide feedback on their work, etc. (e.g., holding a significant amount of extra office hours)
  • Working with students on out-of-class academic projects
  • On-campus presence to participate in student events (e.g. convocation, graduating class poster presentations, departmental theses-proposal presentations, Welcome weekend, etc.)

Mentorship and Advising

  • Evidence of quality of supervision and mentorship of graduate and undergraduate, e.g., student publications (solely authored by students or co-authored with advisors), offers of employment, student awards that at least partly result from work done with the supervisor.
  • Regular meetings of thesis advisor with students and timely responses to chapter and thesis drafts.
  • Evidence of quality of mentoring teaching assistants and/or research assistants. The goal here is to recognize that faculty members have responsibility for mentoring, teaching and working constructively with their TAs and RAs. They should recognize that these students also must balance their TA/RA responsibilities with their own studies. (Evidence of success here would be documentation of the expectations of the TAs/RAs, an explanation about how work and marking was shared between the instructor and the assistants, opportunities to contribute creatively to a course.)
  • Respectful and professional communication (both in person and by email) where the learning process is seen as collaborative. Clearly stated, oral and written communications of expectations when dealing with students firmly based on knowledge of faculty and university regulations when advising.

Carefully-designed assessment methods to ensure grading is consistent within courses and relative to other courses in the faculty

  • Development of a carefully designed system of assessing student performance to ensure that the grades reflected a student’s demonstrated knowledge of course material, and to foster effective learning processes and outcomes.

Additional sources:

1 Arm’s length refers to someone who has not had a close social or research relationship with the candidate and is able to offer a meaningful peer assessment.

2 Normally, the Teaching Fellow is not an appropriate choice as his/her role is to work with individual instructors to enhance that individual’s teaching and/or be a mentor. More than one evaluation letter can be submitted if the candidate chooses as part of the T&P package, e.g. one from the Teaching Fellow and one from another tenured faculty member of the university.

3 Ideally there will be two observations, one of the candidate in a seminar-sized class and one held in a larger lecture class

4 Such materials could include a discussion by the evaluator with the candidate’s class with the instructor absent from the room or access to the candidate’s learning management system to see how the course is managed and communicated on-line. (This is particularly relevant to on-line courses.) Access to the on-line materials by the evaluator should be the same level of access as one given to the students.

5 Adopted from the Department of Philosophy’s Draft Guidelines

6 Note: In cases where the faculty member’s teaching consists primarily of online learning, an online observation may be substituted for a classroom observation.

Last updated on January 26, 2015