Evaluating and improving undergraduate teaching in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics

Abstract

Fox, M. A., and Hackerman, N. (eds.); The National Academies Press, Washington, D.C., 2003, 232 pp., ISBN 0-309-07277-8, $31.96 The culture of higher education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) in the United States is largely driven by the culture of research and scholarship. In the course of obtaining a Ph.D. degree, the typical graduate student spends thousands of hours learning how to practice his/her chosen specialty, supervised by the masters of the field. Alas, that same student receives no more than limited mentoring in the area of teaching. Students learn by example (we teach as we were taught) and by trial and error (if it works, do it), but the application of the methods of scholarship to the area of teaching is infrequently part of the student's educational experience. One of the strengths of American science and technology is its effective mechanisms for evaluating the quality of research. Unfortunately, the evaluation of teaching has not typically been subjected to the same kind of scrutiny, and teaching styles evolve in a more random (albeit often very effective) fashion. This book describes how best to evaluate the effectiveness of undergraduate instruction in STEM fields in a way that more closely aligns the cultures of research and teaching in higher education. This book was compiled by a committee of scientists and educators assembled by the National Academy of Sciences. The book's purpose is to help university instructors improve students' learning. It is not a book of helpful tips or instructional tricks for the would-be instructor; instead, it is focused on what we do as teachers, how we can assess the effectiveness of what we do, and how we might improve that practice. Within that domain, it is an extremely helpful and insightful book. An important theme of this book is the change in instructional focus from teaching (what we do) to learning (what our students do). This trend has been in place for a while, and it is gradually moving us from an information-transmission mode to a learning-facilitation mode. This transition is profound. On the one hand, it relieves teachers of the need to prepare brilliantly organized lectures, although such lectures can certainly be an effective part of the educational mix, and moves us to a more interactive environment in which our job is to facilitate student learning. On the other hand, it shifts the responsibility of the student from passive note taking in a lecture to a more active engagement with learning, from the very beginning. This transformation requires a different understanding of students and what motivates them. It requires moving away from teaching by anecdote to a more scholarly, measured assessment of what and how students learn. An important contribution of this book is its introduction to the research literature that underlies that transformation. The authors argue (correctly, in this reviewer's view) that we would all be better off if more attention were paid to teaching scholarship in the course of developing the next generation of university faculties. An important and useful part of this book is the description of various strategies for using student evaluations to improve teaching. The book makes the point that “well-designed and implemented systems for evaluating teaching and learning can and do improve undergraduate education.” A number of excellent examples of good student survey instruments are included. An important distinction is emphasized between formative evaluation, which happens during a course and is intended to enhance teaching and learning, and summative evaluation, which happens at the end of a course and is intended to report on the success of an already-finished course. Much of student evaluation in STEM courses has traditionally taken place at the end of the semester and is totally summative. Formative evaluation, typically near the midpoint of a course, is of substantially more use in improving teaching. Student evaluation data are often included as part of tenure and promotion packages. The book makes the point that summative evaluations alone are of limited use in this regard. Instead, undergraduate assessment of teaching should include the use of a mixture of methods for evaluating student learning. Although most of the focus in this book is on the teaching of individual faculty and on the evaluation and improvement of that teaching, there is also a useful discussion of the evaluation of whole programs. Program assessment is becoming an increasingly visible part of the accreditation of educational institutions, and this book provides a number of useful insights into this process. Teaching has often been viewed as a solitary activity: a teacher works with a group of students over a period of time, out of the view of his/her faculty colleagues. Assessment of that teacher's effectiveness is limited, and the sharing of teaching strategies and techniques likewise is limited. This book moves us away from this solitary view of teaching to a more community-oriented strategy; this not only changes the focus from teachers teaching to students learning but also changes the focus to the development of a community of scholar-teachers who collaboratively facilitate student learning. There is a rich body of resources regarding teaching that can provide useful information on how we teach and how students learn and how we might improve the quality of that activity. This book is a useful guide to those resources. It can be read online free or downloaded from the Web (www.nap.edu) for a small fee.

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