Teaching Resources
Teaching Excellence & Course Development
Evaluation of Teaching
Executive officers should be vigilant about the quality of instruction in their units, intervening where necessary to help department members achieve the level of performance that the university expects and requires.
Unit heads should be certain that their faculty members’ teaching is regularly evaluated both by students and by peers and all faculty should be made aware of how teaching is evaluated and of how such evaluations are used as data in decisions about retention, promotion and tenure, and salary adjustments.
Student Evaluations of Teaching
The Office for Faculty Affairs offers all units the opportunity to participate in an online course evaluation system. Detailed information about the UIC Student Evaluation of Teaching Program can be found here.
Peer Evaluations of Teaching
Peer-teaching evaluation is an important tool for developing and maintaining excellence of instruction.
- Those on a promotional path should be evaluated at least once a year. It is recommended that there be periodic review also of those who have achieved the highest level of promotion.
- In addition to the formal written evaluation, there should be a meeting between the evaluator and faculty member evaluated at which verbal feedback is given for the purposes of mentoring.
- Faculty should have the opportunity to provide a response to the departmental
executive officer in writing to their written evaluations, which would then become part of the record. - It is important that faculty receive feedback from multiple perspectives, so annual
evaluations of a given faculty member should not all be undertaken by the same
evaluator. Evaluations should, however, address a consistent set of questions about basic pedagogy. (See link for evaluation questions.)
Opportunities for Teaching Awards and Recognition
UIC & LAS Awards and Recognition Programs
For information about these and other UIC programs for faculty recognition, visit UIC’s faculty affairs website.
- Teaching Recognition Program
- Award for Excellence in Teaching
- UIC Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Award
- UIC Community Engagement Award
- Graduate Mentoring Award
- Silver Circle Awards for Teaching Excellence