The new Complementary Teaching Assessment Project Team (CTAPT) is seeking members.
Background
At its October meeting, the University of Waterloo Senate debated and passed the following motion by senator and FAUW vice president Shannon Dea: “To strike a working group to research and develop methods of assessing teaching and learning complementary to Student Course Perception surveys.”
This motion was a follow-up to the first stage of work by UW’s Course Evaluation Project Team (CEPT). CEPT’s report and recommendations were debated and passed by Senate at its September meeting.
The rationale for Dea’s motion noted that “the process leading up to the CEPT report has galvanized University of Waterloo community members’ commitment to excellence in teaching and learning. Both pedagogy scholars and the CEPT report itself emphasize the need for other markers of teaching quality, especially for use in annual review, and promotion and tenure decisions. By striking the proposed working group now, we can build on the momentum and knowledge generated by the CEPT process.”
CTAPT
FAUW and University of Waterloo are now jointly seeking four faculty members from a range of disciplinary areas and backgrounds to serve on CTAPT. One of these faculty members will chair the working group.
CTAPT’s terms of reference describes the group’s purpose as to research and develop methods of assessing teaching and learning complementary to Student Course Perception surveys, and to consult widely with the University community about best practices for such assessment.
CTAPT’s expected outcomes are as follows. The working group will:
- research empirically-supported best practices complementary to student course perception surveys for teaching and learning assessment, both formative and summative;
- develop a strategy to support and promote authentic use of these alternative means of assessment;
- produce a “white paper” summarizing these best practices and implementation strategy, and disseminate it for feedback throughout the university community;
- following this process, bring the white paper and a summary of the feedback to Senate for information and discussion of next steps. (The preliminary deadline for reporting to Senate is September 2018.)
How to apply
If you are interested in serving on CTAPT, please write Shannon Dea at sjdea@uwaterloo.ca by February 16 indicating your willingness to serve and saying a few words about what you would bring to the position.
Associate Vice-President Academic, Mario Coniglio, and the FAUW leadership will adjudicate the applications together, and will report back to the university community once the appointments have been made.
If you have any questions about CTAPT, please contact Shannon Dea at sjdea@uwaterloo.ca.
Please note that you need to be a voting member of FAUW to serve on this project team. You can join online.