Abstract:
Measure the quality of the teachers in a college and you have measured the quality of the college.
Recognize and reward high quality teaching and the quality of teaching in a college will rise, good teachers will become better, and young scholars will aspire to become teachers.
These statements seem obvious in their simplicity. The complex key to making them work lies in the first clause "measure the quality of the teachers". The measurement is complex because teaching is a complex activity. The difficulty of measurement, however, cannot be an excuse, for measurement of quality cannot be avoided. The chairman of a department or the director or dean of a college can discuss methods, debate purposes, and argue about the values, but when promotions are being considered and budgets are being made they must make decisions about quality of teaching. If their decisions are correct and logical, the morale of the staff will rise. If these decisions are wrong, or if they are avoided (which can easily be worse than being wrong), morale will suffer and the quality of teaching will drop. The search for reliable methods for evaluating quality in teaching, therefore, is crucial.
Keywords:
personal interviews, student evaluation, teaching quality
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