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Session 2255

Teaching Assessment: How Do You Do It? Allen C. Estes and Stephen J. Ressler United States Military Academy

Introduction

The role of the teacher in the classroom carries tremendous responsibility. A group of students that can range from a half dozen to several hundred are depending on that individual to provide structure to a body of knowledge, to guide the learning process, to convey difficult subjects in a clear manner, to lead the classroom and out-of-class activities such that student time used efficiently, and to provide a course of instruction where the students can successfully complete the learning objectives. And somehow, the teacher is supposed to establish some rapport along the way. How does the teacher know when he or she is doing well? And how does someone who oversees a program know that the teachers who work for him are doing well? This paper attempts to answer these questions using many of the tools available at the United States Military Academy as illustration.

What Constitutes Good Teaching

Before teaching can be assessed, one must first answer the question what constitutes good teaching. Seymour and Hewitt1 interviewed hundreds of math, science, and engineering students and were able to quantify what students considered bad teaching. The list was long and included such things as inadequate preparation, preoccupation with research, inability to communicate, presenting material at too high a level, and not understanding how people learn. If all of the student comments were turned from a negative to a positive, it would be a good list of what constitutes good teaching. The ExCEEd (Excellence in Civil Engineering Education) Teaching Model2 shown in Fig. 1 is used in the ASCE ExCEEd Teaching Workshops to define what constitutes good teaching. The ExCEEd Teaching Model is derived predominately from Lowman’s Two-Dimensional Model3 and Wankat’s Compendium of Learning Principles4.

The ExCEEd model recognizes both the need for structure and organization as well as rapport with students and an enthusiastic, engaging presentation. The learning objectives have to be clear and the student needs frequent and timely feedback against which to measure progress and make adjustments. Different students learn in different ways and instructors need to appeal to those different learning styles. Technology in the form of computer simulations, software demonstrations, PowerPoint slides, video clips, overhead slides and even chalk can enhance instruction as long as it is used appropriately. This is one list that defines the aspects of good teaching; others undoubtedly exist. If the model is valid then one can then assume that if a teacher is doing everything on the list, he or she is probably teaching well.

“Proceedings of the 2003 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright  2003, American Society for Engineering Education”

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Estes, A., & Ressler, S. (2003, June), Teaching Assessment: How Do You Do It? Paper presented at 2003 Annual Conference, Nashville, Tennessee. 10.18260/1-2--11596