Evaluating and Improving Undergraduate Teaching in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics

Community College Enterprise, The, Spring 2004 by Schneider, Julie

Evaluating and Improving Undergraduate Teaching in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Edited by Marye Anne Fox and Norman Hackerman. Committee on Recognizing, Evaluating, Rewarding, and Developing Excellence in Teaching of Undergraduate Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology. Washington D.C.: National Academies Press, 2003. xiv, 215pp. $39.95^sup USD^, ISBN: 0-309-07277-8 (paper).

Evaluating and Improving ?Undergraduate Teaching in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics addresses questions raised by students and faculty about the fairness, accuracy and implications of assessment. The report, based on a study of the National Research Council's (NRC) Committee on Recognizing, Evaluating, Rewarding, and Developing Excellence in Teaching of Undergraduate Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology (STEM), discusses effective teaching techniques, acknowledges the current atmosphere of teaching responsibilities at academic research institutions, and proposes methods for evaluating teaching and learning as a way to improve education in the targeted disciplines. Fox and Hackerman argue that fair evaluation of teaching and learning can be institutionalized as the basis for allocating rewards and promotions.

The authors and editors propose a top-down restructuring of STEM education by means of multifaceted assessment of teaching and learning. A leader who steps up to the challenge of restructuring could use the book as a guide and checklist for necessary tasks, especially the Executive Summary and Chapter 8: Recommendations. The chapters incorporate clear lists of strategies arranged into Overall Recommendations; Recommendations for Presidents, Overseeing Boards, and Academic Officers; Recommendations for Deans, Department Chairs, and Peer Evaluators and Recommendations for Granting and Accrediting Agencies, Research Sponsors, and Professional Societies. The report could also serve as a key source of support for the restructuring team. Each faculty member and department head would be better able to contribute to the assessment reform after reading and understanding the findings in the report.

Part One: What is Known addresses individual faculty members, departmental and institutional leaders and others interested in improving undergraduate teaching. Fox and Hackerman identify principles of learning and define formative and summative assessment1. The authors emphasize the need for a comprehensive approach using effective assessment methods. They assert that assessment of student learning begins with educational values, works best when it is ongoing-not episodic-and is most likely to lead to improvement when it is part of a larger set of conditions that promote change. Current challenges to successful implementation of those principles are also acknowledged. Part One sets the foundation for Part Two: Applying What is Known.

In Part Two, individual chapters speak to specific professionals at a more intimate level. Faculty members can benefit from Chapter 5: Evaluation Methodologies which describes several assessment techniques that can be incorporated "on the fly" during a semester. Strategies include faculty members frequently asking students if they have questions during lecture to solicit specific responses, encouraging informal conversations to better understand students' perceptions, handing out goals to each student at the start of the semester and at several intervals asking for the students' anonymous assessment of the instructor; requesting colleagues to attend and evaluate classes and maintaining portfolios of techniques that are the most effective.

Chapters 6 and 7 are intended for department and institution leaders. They contain suggestions for successful implementation of more rigorous faculty and program evaluations, such as using a range of appropriate pedagogies and technologies to measure a faculty member's skill, experience, and creativity and providing support and incentive to faculty members who want or need to improve their teaching.

The NRC committee's qualifications represent a broad range of interests that gives the book unarguable credibility. Nationally recognized academic researchers represent disciplines including botany, chemistry, theoretical physics, engineering and mathematics. Several members are professors who have won awards for contributions to education and for teaching expertise. As specialists in assessment at several levels (student assessment, faculty evaluation, etc.) many are devoted to reform. The contributors did a thorough job examining the current state of STEM education and reporting their findings.

Despite being somewhat repetitive, Fox and Hackerman succeed in presenting the material while recognizing the variety of teaching settings that exist in undergraduate STEM education. I would have liked to see more suggestions on how to phase in their recommendations since a drastic revamp of STEM in any one institution would be an astronomical feat. But repetition and vague implementation guidance are hardly something to complain about when the material is so rich and thoughtful.