Aligning Practice to Policies: Changing the Culture to Recognize and Reward Teaching at Research Universities
This is an article about how to align University practices with policies. It offers three examples of how institutions have begun projects to achieve this. It overlaps with the TEval resources, as two of the examples are TEval participants.Abstract: "Recent calls for improvement in undergraduate education within STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines are hampered by the methods used to evaluate teaching effectiveness. Faculty members at research universities are commonly assessed and promoted mainly on the basis of research success. To improve the quality of undergraduate teaching across all disciplines, not only STEM fields, requires creating an environment wherein continuous improvement of teaching is valued, assessed, and rewarded at various stages of a faculty member's career. This requires consistent application of policies that reflect well-established best practices for evaluating teaching at the department, college, and university levels. Evidence shows most teaching evaluation practices do not reflect stated policies, even when the policies specifically espouse teaching as a value. Thus, alignment of practice to policy is a major barrier to establishing a culture in which teaching is valued. Situated in the context of current national efforts to improve undergraduate STEM education, including the Association of American Universities Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative, this essay discusses four guiding principles for aligning practice with stated priorities in formal policies: 1) enhancing the role of deans and chairs; 2) effectively using the hiring process; 3) improving communication; and 4) improving the understanding of teaching as a scholarly activity. In addition, three specific examples of efforts to improve the practice of evaluating teaching are presented as examples: 1) Three Bucket Model of merit review at the University of California, Irvine; (2) Evaluation of Teaching Rubric, University of Kansas; and (3) Teaching Quality Framework, University of Colorado, Boulder. These examples provide flexible criteria to holistically evaluate and improve the quality of teaching across the diverse institutions comprising modern higher education."

A Better Way to Evaluate Undergraduate Teaching
A Better Way to Evaluate Undergraduate Teaching In this article, the author considers current methods of evaluating teaching at research universities and proposes a new method for evaluation based on teaching ...

Improving the Academic Climate of an R1 STEM Department: Quantified Positive Shifts in Perception
This study confirms the positive outcomes of having a practical, sustainable, and data-driven framework for affecting change within a graduate community.

ACHIEVING SYSTEMIC CHANGE: A SOURCEBOOK FOR ADVANCING AND FUNDING UNDERGRADUATE STEM EDUCATION
Catherine L. Fry, Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U)
This sourcebook is intended as a useful resource for allthose who have a stake in creating STEM solutions forUS society. It addresses the rationale for investing insystemic change throughout higher education, identifiescritical areas for investment, and provides pointers to keyreports and current STEM education reform efforts.

Essential Questions & Data Sources for Continuous Improvement of Undergraduate STEM Teaching and Learning
Essential Questions & Data Sources for Continuous Improvement of Undergraduate STEM Teaching and Learning This resource complements AAU's Framework for Systemic Change in Undergraduate STEM Teaching and ...

Shaping the Future of Higher Education: Practical, Community-Driven Initiatives to Improve Academic Climate
In this Editorial, we present the history and details of a collaborative effort to improve the academic climate of the Department of Chemistry at University of California, Berkeley.

Catalyzing Institutional Transformation: Insights from the AAU STEM Initiative
Catalyzing Institutional Transformation: Insights from the AAU STEM Initiative The authors describe the development of AAU's Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative, the approach AAU took to building this ...

Aligning practice to policies: changing the culture to recognize and reward teaching at research universities
Aligning practice to policies: changing the culture to recognize and reward teaching at research universities In this review, the authors highlight the gap between existing policies at many research institutions, ...

New Faculty Workshop in Physics
New Faculty Workshop in Physics Led by disciplinary societies, this 20+ year professional development program has been shown to have a substantial impact on faculty awareness of, and initial use of, active ...

Describing & Measuring Undergraduate STEM Teaching Practices
Describing & Measuring Undergraduate STEM Teaching Practices Describes practices for measurement of teaching excellence in STEM. Suggested Citation American Association for the Advancement of Science. (2012, ...