Evaluation & Review
Evaluating units
Evaluation of unit delivery and teaching is part of the university's continual process of assessing and improving the quality of its programs. Teaching staff have a professional responsibility to evaluate their teaching regularly and to use this information to reflect on ways to enhance student learning in their units and courses.
Feedback from students and other
end users, including industry, is central
to evaluation. The use of feedback demonstrates to our clients that the
University values their views and will work to enhance their level of
satisfaction with programs.
CDU uses the Student
Experience of Learning and Teaching (SELT) formal evaluation to
generate formal feedback from students on teaching and unit
delviery.
For information, forms and processes for evaluating units in internal, external and online mode in both higher education and VET, go to the SELT web page of the Accreditation and Quality Team.
Evaluating external resources
For development of external print and flexible delivery educational resources, OLT engages with Faculties to identify upcoming developmental and improvement work. This work is documented in the Course and Unit Quality Improvement Plan (CUQIP). Predominantly, resource development appearing in CUQIP each semester will be external print materials, Learnline units (internal and external), and units with web and/or multimedia elements.
CUQIP helps to identify and focus the work of OLT and ensures that
resource production, web and
multimedia staff and educational designers collaborate with faculty
staff to produce the best possible materials within resources available.
How do I use evaluation to improve my unit/teaching?
Evaluation involves learning about our teaching from our students, our colleagues and ourselves so as to make improvements to our teaching practice that facilitate improved learning for our students.
Evaluation occupies a central role in teaching and forms and shapes the professional practice of individual teachers. Effective teaching is not simply a matter of following a set of rules or applying a particular technique. Each teaching situation is unique and can be thought of as a form of problem solving requiring teachers to make judgements about how to best engage students in the process of learning.
Academics can utilise a number of tools to review and critique their teaching practice in order to continuously improve teaching and learning practices. These include Student Experience of Learning and Teaching (SELT), informal student feedback, peer feedback and self reflection.
The following questions can help as you begin to reflect on the information you have gathered and so draw from that material your personal learnings.
- What did I learn about my teaching?
- What worked well?
- What didn't work so well?
- What do I now know more about?
- What do I know differently?
- What do I need to know more about?
- Where do I go from here?
The following questions can help you get started on developing your action plan for improvement.
- Which aspect of my teaching would I like to develop?
- What questions would I pose as a starting point in reflecting on this aspect of my teaching?
- What strategies could I use to obtain data to help me answer these questions?
- What action would I take?
- If I did act on my reflections, how would I know I had enhanced my teaching?
- What can help or assist me in this process?
(Adapted from An action-enquiry framework for evaluation from the University of Canberra)
