The Committee on Teaching (COT) met approximately twice per month to carry out its charge of fostering and promoting the teaching mission of the campus. The Committee is grateful for the valuable assistance and contributions of Eileen Tanner, Coordinator of the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE); and Laurie Babka, staff to COT from the Academic Senate Office. Additionally, consultations with Léo Laporte, Associate Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate Education (AVCUE), and Jan Dickens, Director of Media Services, proved valuable.

The work and accomplishments of the Committee during the 1997-98 year are summarized below.

COT in conjunction with CTE developed a revised machine-readable UCSC Instructor Evaluation form for faculty and departments to use for student evaluations of faculty teaching. The form combines rating items and open-ended comments. The content of the rating items was derived from existing research identifying the types of factors that faculty and students agree constitute excellent teaching. COT deliberately avoided using numeric ratings. Instead, each item is rated using terms such as "excellent," "very good," "fair," etc. In this way, a more informative picture can be provided regarding the range of student opinion (e.g., 65% "excellent", 20% "very good", 13% "fair", and 2% "poor".)

COT recommends that departments within the University move to using the new UCSC Instructor Evaluation form in order to ensure a comparable form for student assessment of teaching across the campus. At the same time, COT and CTE are receptive to suggestions for further improvements on the UCSC Instructor Evaluation form.

One of the regular functions of the Committee is to evaluate faculty and staff applications for Instructional Improvement Program (IIP) Grants. IIP grants include Mini Grants (with a limit of $1000) for instructional improvement. In addition, there are two types of larger annual competition grants—Individual/Collaborative Grants (with a limit of $5,000) and Major Project Grants (with a limit of $15,000). This year a new type of incentive grant was instituted in a two-year pilot program. Faculty, departments, or colleges could apply for a Peer Collaboration and Review stipend ($500 for faculty and $2,000 for departments or colleges). The Peer Collaboration and Review stipend program is described in more detail below.

COT considered a total of 49 proposals. In the year-long competition for Mini Grants, 26 applicants requested a total of $19,559.52. In the annual competition, there were 15 Individual/Collaborative applicants requesting $58,171.56, and 8 Major Project applicants requesting $99,371.75. Approved for funding were 22 Mini Grants, 11 Individual/Collaborative Grants, 6 Major Project Grants, and 4 Peer Collaboration and Review stipends. In all, $114,993.64 was awarded.

To facilitate applications for IIP grants, various methods were used. The Call for Proposals went out via campus mail in the last week of October. Announcements were also made on electronic mail. The Chair of COT and the Coordinator for the CTE participated in an open forum during the fall quarter for faculty and staff interested in the application process. The CTE Coordinator participated in an additional forum for interested applicants during the winter quarter. The Center for Teaching Excellence also offered individual consultations to grant applicants all year long.

In an ongoing effort to make the Call for Proposals clearer and more inviting to potential applicants, COT in conjunction with CTE Coordinator Eileen Tanner began an examination of the past year’s Call at the end of the academic year. Changes will be finalized over the summer, and a revised Call will appear in fall 1998.

This past year, COT in conjunction with the AVCUE and CTE, instituted the first of a two-year pilot Peer Collaboration and Review stipend program. The program provides $500 to individuals and $2000 to departments or colleges who undertake some form of peer collaboration or review of teaching. This grant opportunity built on UCSC’s participation in the American Association for Higher Education’s Peer Collaboration and Review Initiative. Based on the premise that teaching, like other forms of scholarly activity, is substantive, intellectual work, Peer Collaboration and Review emphasizes and promotes the creation of a culture of teaching and learning on campus. Toward this end, it seeks to develop tools and processes that can generate and maintain a campus focus on teaching and learning while creating networks for faculty and others committed to these same goals. Some examples of activities that could potentially fall within this sub-category of grants included the following: development of individual course or teaching portfolios, reciprocal observations and discussions of teaching, mentoring partnerships, team-teaching partnerships, organization of teaching circles, incorporation of teaching colloquia in the faculty hiring process, incorporation of activities such as these in the faculty evaluation process, or research projects to assess student learning.

There were seven applications for Peer Collaboration and Review stipends, of which four qualified for funding. Next year, a stronger effort will be made to highlight the availability of the stipends for faculty during the second year of this pilot program.

With the AVCUE and the Center for Teaching Excellence, COT co-sponsored the Fourth Annual Winter Convocation on Teaching. The Convocation theme was titled, "How Do I Know Excellent Teaching When I See It?" Panelists provided different perspectives on the question, including the student’s, the individual faculty member’s, and departmental peers’. Additionally, the COT chair reviewed the research on the limitations of objectively assessing teaching excellence, and a former chair of the Committee on Academic Personnel presented the views of that Senate committee. In an effort to increase attendance, the Convocation was held on a Friday afternoon with a reception afterwards. Despite a heavy rainstorm, 75 faculty turned out for the event.

COT met with Jodi Williams from the Student Union Association (SUA) about a plan to reinstitute the Course Review. The student-generated Course Review was a former publication available at the Bookstore summarizing student evaluations of faculty’s courses. COT endorses the idea of reinstating the Course Review. We believe it can contribute in a positive way to improving teaching on campus. However, COT does not support two features of the SUA proposal as presented. First, COT objects to SUA’s plan to publish either all or some of the students’ written comments. Instead, COT would support the publication of summary distributions of rating items (such as those used on the new UCSC Instructor Evaluation form). COT suggested the possibility that willing faculty and departments might be able to release the summary information from these evaluations to SUA for their Course Review. Second, COT objects to SUA’s plan to publish the Course Review on the Web. Although COT recognizes the cost-savings in doing this, there are privacy concerns. Many faculty who might otherwise be willing to have their course evaluation released for a local student publication would not like having course information posted to anyone with access to the Internet.

During last year’s Report, COT made the following comment:

This year, COT considered the possibility of addressing the issue of academic integrity. The Council of Provosts and the Committee on Educational Policy were contacted to see if either was interested in co-sponsoring a panel to discuss the matter. There was not sufficient interest in pursuing a panel at this time.

The Chair and a member of COT attended two national meetings sponsored by the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE). One related to the Peer Review of Teaching project in which UC Santa Cruz participated for four years under the leadership of AVCUE Léo Laporte. Another was the annual Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards. COT recommends that the dialogue stimulated by these meetings be continued and extended.

At the Forum on Faculty Roles and Rewards, the COT chair, the AVCUE, and the CTE Coordinator presented a program briefing describing UCSC’s efforts to institutionalize the goals of peer collaboration and review.

COT visited the new video-conferencing facilities in Applied Sciences 156 and heard a presentation on the potential of distance learning.

An important COT initiative this past year was to investigate team teaching across the campus. By team teaching, COT means two faculty members attending and participating in each class throughout the length of a course. In contrast, what might be called shared teaching occurs when faculty take turns covering separate parts of the course. Although shared teaching can have its benefits, we consider team teaching to be more valuable for improving teaching. Students are able to experience dialogue between two experts who bring different perspectives to the topics. The instructors also benefit from seeing one another teach and discussing how they approach instruction in the course.

Although many faculty see pedagogical advantages to team teaching, we found no clear policy or mechanism for giving faculty teaching credit for team teaching. COT surveyed department chairs to investigate policies currently in place. Of the 19 departments that responded to the survey, 9 had no formal policy for team teaching. Those that did typically credited faculty based on the percentage of time spent teaching and, in some cases, on course size. In a few departments there was no team teaching happening at all, and several chairs indicated a real concern about the workload issues.

COT will continue its consideration of team teaching in the coming year.

This year COT in coordination with CTE intensified efforts to publicize these awards. The Call for Nominations appeared in all departments and colleges as well as other key locations on campus. Electronic mail announcements were sent to all faculty, department chairs, divisional deans, the Graduate Student Association, the Student Union Assembly, and All Messages (a campus e-mail system). The result was a total of 35 nomination letters from students. Next year, COT will consider additional ways to encourage student nominations.

To select the winners, COT considered the nomination letters from students, endorsement letters from department chairs, and statements on teaching from the nominees themselves, when they chose to submit them. They also took into account information provided by the Registrar's Office about outstanding narrative evaluations. Nominees with missing evaluations were given an opportunity to explain or correct the Registrar’s report. Only those who were completely up to date on their narratives were considered for an award.

This year COT opted to offer more rather than fewer Excellence in Teaching Awards. They were presented by the Chancellor and the COT Chair at a University House reception on June 1. Recipients were Michael Dalbey, Biology; A. Russell Flegal, Environmental Toxicology/Earth Sciences; David Hoy, Philosophy; John Isbister, Economics; Gary Miles, History; Paul Nauert, Music; Cynthia Polecritti, History; Paul Rangell, Art; Zack Schlesinger, Physics; Helen Shapiro, Sociology; and Shelley Stamp, Film and Video.

October 13, 1998