25 Consistency in Departmental Review Practices

Much of the support educators need when preparing their teaching portfolios can be provided before a formal evaluation process begins. Best practice in establishing these supports involves determining consistent, transparent, and open support mechanisms for all educators within a department or Faculty. This approach prevents inequities among educators that can arise from inconsistent and ad hoc teaching evaluation practices (Krishnan et al., 2022).

Establishing consistent, transparent, and open supports might entail:

• Confirming your understanding of McMaster’s policy statements relevant to the assessment of teaching. McMaster’s policy is supported by research indicating that the evaluation of teaching should rely on multiple perspectives, including the perspectives of students, peers, and the instructor (Finkelstein et al., 2020; Weaver et al., 2020; Krishnan et al., 2022).
• Being transparent about what is important in your department, Faculty, Institution, and/or discipline. For example, it may be most important for faculty in your department to take a scholarly approach to teaching and learning, align their teaching priorities with disciplinary norms, highlight their alignment with institutional strategies, take risks and try out innovative teaching practices, etc.
• Fostering a continuous improvement mindset by encouraging educators to think critically and engage in scholarly practice with their teaching. Grounding this practice within a specific discipline or set of departmental, Faculty, or institutional priorities can assist with formulating priorities for scholarship and/or improvement (Dennin et al. 2017).
• Creating guidelines around what constitutes quality teaching in your department. Best practice is to engage educators in your department in co-creating these guidelines, so that you have both input and buy-in from the outset (Dennin et al. 2017). The guidelines may look like a set of indicators, metrics, or a sample list of evidence materials that are most appropriate for teaching in your disciplinary context. Ideas for types of evidence can be found in the next section, Approaching Individual Portfolio Evaluations.
• Making portfolio review part of the annual review process with both tenure- and teaching-track faculty. This will help both you and your department’s educators feel well-prepared for tenure, permanence, or promotion.
• Deciding how you want educators in your department to approach contextualizing student course experience survey data for Part A.v. of their portfolios.
• Collecting exemplary teaching portfolios from several educators in your department and, with their permission, make these portfolios available to colleagues upon request.
• Encouraging educators to engage with existing teaching portfolio supports at McMaster, including:
  • The annual Tenure, Promotion, and Permanence at McMaster workshops hosted by the Office of the Provost,
  • This Preparing a Teaching Portfolio Guidebook,
  • The Teaching Portfolios at McMaster module available via the MacPherson Institute’s Learning Catalogue, or
  • A teaching portfolio review consultation with the MacPherson Institute.

As you develop or reaffirm consistent supports for your department, make yourself available to educators for any questions related to teaching and learning priorities, processes, or evaluation. It is also best practice to ensure that your approach to evaluating teaching aligns with your strategies for hiring new educators (Dennin et al., 2017).