FSEC links teaching evaluation to improved learning environment

By ARTHUR PAGE
News Services Director

While not dismissing their own responsibility for creating such an environment, faculty members stressed the need for more commitment from the university administration, as well as from students.

Two members of the Faculty Senate's Teaching and Learning Committee said they are not prepared to put time and effort into any study of the two areas unless resulting recommendations will be supported in spirit and funding by the university's administration.

Noting that during his quarter-century at UB there have been "two or three previous attempts" at such a study and "a lot of nice ideas," Phillips Stevens Jr., associate professor of anthropology, asked, "Where did they go?

"I don't want to spend time on another...unless there are some assurances that we're going to be listened to and our recommendations implemented," he added.

Characterizing himself as "the old curmudgeon," Jonathan Reichert, professor of physics, said he would commit only to being a "quasi member" of the committee until there is an indication from the administration of such a commitment.

"If the administration is not prepared to put the money out, I'm not prepared to spend the last five years of my life at this institution working on this," he added. "This is a tough problem and I want to see signals from this administration that say 'yes.'"

Reichert said he doesn't see the administration of any research university making such a commitment. "Because," he added, "what still runs this university is research and grants," not an emphasis on teaching and learning.

Members of the FSEC met with the majority of members of the Teaching and Learning Committee following the executive committee's weekly meeting.

Faculty Senate Chair Claude E. Welch Jr., outlined five proposed tasks for the committee: examining forms used at UB for evaluation, determining how teaching evaluations are used to improve instruction, determining how teaching evaluations are used to review the performance of faculty members, suggesting other steps to improve teaching quality and linking quality of teaching with depth and quality of learning.

"We have an opportunity to develop an invigorated discussion about the quality of teaching on this campus through a whole variety of mechanisms," Welch noted.

Ronald J. Huefner, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the School of Management and chair of the Teaching and Learning Committee, said that while quality of teaching traditionally has been measured by evaluations completed by students currently in a class, there are other forms of measurement "that have gotten very little attention." He added, "It is probably some of those other areas that need to be examined more carefully."

Faculty members voiced concern about how often teaching evaluations are conducted, as well as the actual forms that are used.

Maureen Jameson, associate professor of modern languages and literatures and an FSEC member, said forms used in her department "are not adequate for the thoughts the students seem to want to communicate. They are not adaptable. You can't, for instance, at the beginning of the semester identify five goals and have questions about those goals built into the questionnaire that comes at the end of the semester.

"And the results are utterly unintelligible...," she added. "You can't begin to guess whether you relate to some sort of norm, are above average, below average, if there is an area where you need to improve. You can't begin to interpret them. It would be helpful to me to have a better instrument put in place and worked up conscientiously."

FSEC member John Meacham, professor of psychology, said he felt that the charges to the committee "seem to touch on the output side: How good is the teaching? How good is the learning?"

He suggested: "Why don't we look at the input side and raise questions such asÉWhat are we doing relative to other campuses in SUNY and other major research centers around the country? What are we doing to orient our new freshmen and transfer students to the learning opportunities, to the atmosphere, to study habits and so on as they come to our campus? What are the sorts of resources that our campus is providing to assist faculty to be good teachers?"

Meacham noted, for example, that at the University of California at Davis, a university that is often used in comparisons by UB, there is an Office for Teaching Effectiveness with 11 full-time staff "merely to help the faculty to be better teachers. He added: "If we see ourselves as a peer with UC Davis, where do we standÉin terms of how we support our faculty to be good teachers?"

William C. Fisher, vice provost for faculty development, who said he wants to be an ex-officio member of the Teaching and Learning Committee, noted that a proposal has been submitted to the Office of the Provost recommending that each decanal area set up a committee with academic department representation to focus on teaching and learning within their area, and that a university-wide committee be established to focus on both in terms of "broad issues."

Questioning the approach of placing the responsibility with individual academic units, William A. Miller, professor of stomatology, asked "Why don't we have a central group that works together? Maybe the UC Davis model is a good one."

He added: "Let's put it all together. Let's make comparisons across the disciplines as to how teaching effectiveness is evaluated. Let's not keep it in the unit; let's keep it as a general university function."

FSEC member G. Scott Danford, associate professor of architecture, said the focus of a committee on teaching and learning should not be limited to the evaluation process.

"What we have to focus on is transactions occurring between faculty and students, with responsibilities on both sides here. We want to develop a culture of teaching among the faculty so that they will bring the best they can to the classroom. But there has to be a culture of learning among students."

If the latter does not exist, he added, "teaching is wasted."

Stevens noted that he spent most of the last academic year serving on a committee on teaching in the Faculty of Social Sciences.

"We concluded at the end of our deliberations that we can spend a lot of effort improving methods of classroom performance, classroom resources, learn a lot of tricks and all, but they are wasted if they fall on unreceptive ears and eyes."

Referring to comments from another committee member that some students appear to lack "critical thinking" skills, Stevens noted: "There are some much more basic, much more fundamental elements in the learning process that we need to emphasize.

"They are common sense, they are like attending class regularly, they are like doing the assignments regularly, they are like thinking and talking about the material presented in class, they are like asking for help. Fundamental, basic things like this."

Stevens added that to re-establish a culture of learning, there are "fundamental student responsibilities which we need to re-inculcate in our students. This emphasis on learning needs to be part of the deliberations of any committee on teaching."