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RETHINKING EVALUATION OF TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Abstract
Evaluation of teaching in higher education is an important, yet difficult, process for deans, other administrators and teachers. The purpose of this dissertation is to advance helpful ideas to those who are charged with the responsibility to judge teaching, and to those who are being judged. A rethinking of four central questions ((1) What is education? (2) What is teaching? (3) Can we teach? (4) Are we doing a good job teaching?) is accomplished with help from the work of Hannah Arendt, Joseph Epstein, Louis Hartz, Richard Hofstadter, Robert Pirsig, Plato, Jean-Paul Sartre and others. A significant issue raised by these four questions is the whole notion of quality and excellence. In addition, judgment itself is explored through Kant's ideas of purposiveness and exemplary validity. The particular stories of three teachers in higher education are given wherein they relate their attitudes toward the four central questions, reflections on their best teachers from higher education and their ideas about quality and excellence in teaching. In conclusion, a review of several approaches or reactions taken toward evaluations is presented. Through this rethinking process it is learned that deans, administrators and teachers need to, and can, take evaluation of teaching seriously. A framework of ideas, including excellence in teaching, philosophical agreement, shared judgment and hope for the future, and an experiment in thought which outlines a possible approach to the essentials in an evaluation process is provided to help us start anew in evaluating teaching. From this framework of ideas and the thought experiment, further research could implement the experiment and monitor the experiences. In all evaluations, the underlying notion of the pursuit and recognition of excellence in teaching must remain intact.
Subject Area
Higher education
Recommended Citation
TOTTEN, LEON E., "RETHINKING EVALUATION OF TEACHING IN HIGHER EDUCATION" (1984). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8418867.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8418867