Teaching Graduate Students to Teach Conference

Program evaluation discussion take-home message

Interesting discussion on the various implementations of program evaluations across different programs and countries! For example, a university in Brazil kept track of alumni employment, and one in Germany had TA assessment for every lecture (as part of specific government mandated program). We all agreed that ideally, a longitudinal survey reaching beyond graduation would be fantastic.  Teaching graduate students how to teach is not only for the present but also meant to be useful over a whole career (and beyond teaching careers; e.g. leading teams and projects).  Most programs have self-reported satisfaction and/or efficacy evaluations in place for auditing purposes.  Other programs with more manpower and funding assess with interviews and in context with case studies and videos from microteaching exercises (aiming for publications).  Useful evaluation instruments from the literature that can be used are the “Approach to Teaching Inventory” and “Teaching Perspective Inventory”.  More items discussed are on the google docs ….!