Divide and Conquer: Changing the Culture of Teaching and Learning at the Department Level in a Research Intensive Institution

This poster describes the work done by KU Sociology as part of the TEval project, an interdisciplinary, inter-institutional NSF funded project designed to improve undergraduate education by engendering processes that encourage, document, and recognize effective and equitable educational practices in higher education. A key focus has been on implementing a common research-based framework (the Benchmarks Rubric) to holistically define, document and evaluate effective teaching. This framework covers 7 key areas of teaching: 1) Course goals, content, and alignment; 2) Teaching practices; 3) Achievement of learning outcomes; 4) Classroom climate and student perceptions; 5) Reflection and iterative growth; 6) Mentoring and advising; and 7) Involvement in teaching, service, scholarship, or community. Over the past 3 ½ years, sociology has adapted the Benchmarks Rubric for 1) Tenured & Tenure Track Faculty; 2) Graduate Student Teaching Assistants; and 3) Teaching Professors and Multi-Term Lecturers. The poster will describe the process and adaptations made for each targeted group, successes and failures in utilizing the adapted rubrics for annual evaluations, promotion and tenure and post-tenure reviews, and developing a culture of effective teaching and shared expectations for teaching. Barriers to change among tenured faculty included: concerns that using the rubric would take too much time; that it will result in more busy work related to documentation and assessment but would not actually improve teaching; that those who take it seriously would not be rewarded; and the overall lack of incentives to excel at teaching at a research intensive University. Facilitators of change included buy-in from key members of the department, working through most of the department individually or in small groups before having larger department discussions, aligning messaging regarding incentives for excellent teaching with current changes in higher education, identifying non-monetary incentives, and developing streamlined materials and instructions for using the rubric.