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Faculty Friendlyprovides instructive feedback to guide faculty performance that can lead to superior faculty evaluations. Feedback actually precedes evaluation. As one professor of music stated: "It boosts my confidence." Faculty can also add behaviors to the survey which reflect specific class requirements. Never on the net.
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Objectivesurvey items are thirty-seven competent teaching behaviors not descriptive (and often ambigious) statements which students must rate. It is not a student opinion questionaire. Not a faculty popularity contest. By emphasizing positive teaching behaviors, the IPI provides insightful, never insulting feedback.
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Localsurvey is idiographic and non-normative. No meaningless national norms. No averaging of scores. Can there be average teaching behavior? Faculty performance review reflects your local faculty culture which is strengthened not diminished by the process.
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Transparentthe instructor and students assign teaching behaviors to the instructor using the same list of behavioral items. Feedback is immediate and useful in understanding the relationship between teaching performance and evaluation
The instructor performance inventory was developed by an organizational researcher and consultant with 35 years of teaching experience (Ph.D, Columbia University) to overcome deficiencies in exisiting methods and give faculty ownership in the new system. Faculty ownership is provided by localizing the process and by elmininating national standards which do not reflect your faculty culture. The IPI is the first faculty evaluation and learning system that is accessible, local in character, and non-ambigious. One that will generate faculty trust and confidence by allowing faculty to add their own items to the inventory.
The IPI builds trust by including faculty directly in a double-loop learning system. By seeing each student's behavioral assessment and by comparing these results with a self-assessment, faculty are motivated to learn from the system and can guide their performance accordingly with constructive results. Definitely a plus for faculty.
We urge you to replace your non-constructive and contentious faculty evaluation system with one that will build trust instead. By switching to the Instructor Performance Inventory, you will change faculty resistance to faculty acceptance and establish renewed confidence in the evaluation process.
The IPI has two interrelated parts: a developmental component which consists of 37 teaching behaviors that provide feedback to faculty, and an evaluative component drawn from the above. Your colleagues have described the developmental part as a "wonderful tool" and a "fantastic instrument."
The revised IPI may be the first nationally available faculty evaluation and learning system that includes learning principals inherent in the theory of double-loop learning.
Basic assumptions about one's teaching are examined and can be modified based on student feedback that occurs prior to evaluation feedback. In this case, learning precedes evaluation which is followed by additional learning opportunities on a reciprocal basis. This follows the learning model as proposed by the organizational learning theorist Chris Argyris at Harvard University.