Evaluation of Teaching Practice or ‘there’s more than one way to peel an orange’!

Wednesday 3 July: 5:30pm – 7:00pm, poster session

Presenters

Associate Professor Adrienne Torda
University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia
a.torda@unsw.edu.au

Dr Sarah-Jane Moore
University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia

Dr Rebecca LeBard
University of New South Wales Sydney, Australia

Background

Evaluation of learning and teaching is an integral aspect of the contemporary tertiary context. Academics may use this information for a wide range of purposes, ranging from the ongoing improvement of teaching deliverables, mapping student gains, testing new formats or teaching approaches, through to gathering evidence of impact or reflecting on teaching values. This presentation maps the journey and development of the Community of Education and Learning Evidence Based Scholarship (CELEBS) community of practice (CoP) at UNSW Sydney. This CoP formed to develop an online resource for the professional development of tertiary educators in evaluating their practice. CELEBS is an interfaculty group of 22 education-focused (EF) academics representing five faculties at the UNSW Sydney.

The issue

The major issue for EF academics was access to a resource that would assist them in determining how to evaluate some aspect of their teaching. Members of the CoP collaborated to develop an online resource for academics that showcased videos which drew from the experience of members, in approaches to evaluating professional practice and also presented decision making tools. Development of the resource required academics to work together to produce evidence of their evaluation practice as a collective with a number of comparisons and contrasts.

Intended outcome

The resource is of use to all academics at UNSW. As a broad range of academics were involved in the development of the online resource, it covers a wide range of needs and approaches from many different faculties. This project model has relevance to all tertiary institutions that foster academic development of teaching staff and are dedicated to improving teaching and learning.

Presentation topic

Poster session