Instructor Reflections

Instructor Reflections

The Instructor Reflection is one way for faculty to provide evidence of Engaged Teaching for Teaching Evaluation purposes. The Instructor Reflection is optional, and is one of many ways that instructors can demonstrate Engaged Teaching (others include candidate statements and teaching portfolios). Here, "engaged teaching" is defined as “demonstrated reflective teaching practice, including through the regular revision of courses in content and pedagogy.” 

Completed Instructor Reflections are archived for instructors to access for the continuous improvement of their teaching. Faculty can choose to include them as part of their teaching materials submitted for evaluation—read more on the Provost Office's page on Materials for the Evaluation of Teaching.

Contents of this page:

 

About Instructor Reflections

The Instructor Reflection is intended to assist instructors in documenting and archiving ideas for continual course improvement. It provides a mechanism to place instructors' own voices into the Teaching Evaluation process at the course level. It is also one way for instructors to provide evidence of Engaged Teaching for Teaching Evaluation purposes. You can review the University of Oregon's Teaching Evaluation Standards on the Provost Office's website.

UO centrally administers Instructor Reflection surveys for each course through the same system students submit SES responses. You can submit and review completed surveys can be accessed in CollegeNET (through DuckWeb). See more about self reflection as part of Revising UO’s Teaching Evaluations on the Provost Office's website.

Most faculty who opt to respond to the instructor reflection questions do so with very brief answers and skip questions, using the survey merely to capture positive practices, teaching innovations, and teaching development work that might otherwise go unrecorded, or respond to trends in student feedback. If you are thinking ahead about including these reflections as a part of a teaching evaluation, using bullet points or short statements to describe your accomplishments may be more useful for evaluators than paragraphs of prose.

How are Other Instructors Using the Instructor Reflection?

 

On average, instructors write
300-400 words
across all questions for a course.
On average, instructors answer
4 questions
out of the potential 8 questions in the reflection.

 

What questions does the Instructor Reflection ask?

The reflection prompts instructors to record how they developed their teaching in alignment with University of Oregon's Teaching Evaluation Standards of Professional, Inclusive, Engaged, and Research-informed. Instructors can submit a reflection for each course, or write about multiple courses in one reflection.

Courses

Instructors are asked which course or courses they are submitting a reflection for:

What course(s) are you addressing here? If you teach multiple sections or courses, you may complete a separate reflection for each, or note here which courses you are reflecting upon:

 

Teaching Standard Reflection

Instructors are asked to select which component(s) of UO's teaching standards they want to reflect on in this survey:

Are there examples of your professional, inclusive, engaged, and research-informed practices in your course, or other important-to-you innovations and notes that you’d like to capture about your teaching? If so, you are welcome to record them below! Select the practices you want to add reflections about:

  • Professional Teaching
  • Inclusive Teaching
  • Engaged Teaching
  • Research-Informed (research mission)
  • Research-Informed (evidence-based teaching)

For each component that an instructor choses, they are then given space to complete the associated prompt as listed in the table below.

Teaching ComponentReflection Prompt Asked if a Component is Chosen
Professional TeachingI developed or innovated in my professional teaching, specifically by:
Inclusive TeachingI developed or innovated in in my inclusive teaching, specifically by:
Engaged TeachingAs an engaged teacher, I sought feedback on this course, or community and resources for developing it by:
Research-Informed (research mission)I developed or innovated in my research-informed teaching, specifically related to UOs research mission by:
Research-Informed (evidence-based teaching)I developed or innovated in my research-informed teaching (based on evidence about how people learn), specifically by:

 

General Comments

Instructors are asked if there are other items they wish to share with future evaluators:

Is there anything else you wanted to share with reviewers about this course?

 

Private Reflection

Instructors are given space to record private reflections that will be archived for them to review in the future, but these comments will NOT visible to evaluators:

Is there anything else you want to archive for your personal record? (This answer is not included in teaching evaluation reports, but you can always access it along with all your responses through the “Course Evaluations” tab in DuckWeb as part of your reflective practice.)

 

Frequently Asked Questions Related to the Instructor Reflection

How will I benefit from completing an Instructor Reflection?

Taking time to reflect on courses and make notes is part of conscientious teaching practice. The new Instructor Reflection prompts this practice, making it easier, and archives the results. It uses UO’s student survey system, CollegeNet, to send instructors a survey at the end of each course. All of your reflections will be organized by term for you to read through as part of future course planning or when you write teaching statements for future performance evaluations.

Instructor Reflections will also be read by your department head and appear in the data that evaluators (committee members at the unit, college, and university level) receive as part of your promotion, tenure, and post-tenure review file. The intention here is to ensure that your voice is present at any moment of evaluation and to capture instances of more granular good practice that otherwise might be invisible in an assessment of your teaching (e.g. you observed a class related to the one you were teaching, you made improvements to a particular activity).

Colleagues in a position to evaluate your teaching will see your own responses about inclusive, engaged, research-informed, and professional teaching alongside feedback from students and peers.

Is it mandatory?

No. Because UO is moving toward criteria-based evaluation, the Instructor Reflection offers an opportunity for you to provide specific evidence of how your teaching realizes the criteria set by your unit and the University for evaluation and awards.

What level of comprehensiveness is recommended? Am I supposed to write the same thing over and over again?

There is no need to repeat things that are already part of your record during the period of review. Instead, think about using the Instructor Reflection form to highlight any specific examples of your inclusive, engaged, and research-informed teaching—and any other areas your department has elevated in its policies—that you wish to register in relation to this particular course.

Should I rebut negative student feedback?

Teaching evaluation at UO no longer makes student feedback primary. When considering student feedback, evaluators are asked to look for patterns of achievement or struggle, an instructor’s own self-presentation, and peer teaching evaluations. If you think that there is a pattern of negative student feedback that you want to address, then by all means, provide context for understanding this pattern. But do not feel you are responsible for responding to every instance of critical student feedback. You are not.

The Instructor Reflection asks me about things that aren’t going well. Why should I participate if this goes into my future promotion or tenure file?

What being a good teacher means is changing at UO. We have enshrined engaged teaching as a pillar of teaching excellence. That means that experimentation, calculated risk-taking, reflection, and deliberate evolution will all be interpreted positively by review committees at every level.