Evaluating Teaching: What are the teaching/performance standards at UofT?
Officially, teaching is measured by student evaluations and letters/email received from students. These will form part of your tenure file and are considered during your annual review as part of PTR. It is a good idea to keep any unsolicited emails from students which provide some feedback on your teaching. Unofficially, you can ask for feedback in a variety of ways. Hold a mid-course evaluation to solicit written feedback on questions you have about your teaching or course activities. You can also have a peer or your mentor, review your teaching, or ask the OTA to come and evaluation your teaching. While there are some universal characteristic of good teaching (e.g. instilling critical thinking skills), what counts as good teaching and how it is measured/evaluated is primarily discipline-specific. To learn about teaching expectations in your discipline, you could speak to your chair, speak to someone who is considered by your colleagues as a good teacher, sit in on colleagues’ classes
