Individual Fellow Initiatives

Student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are one of the official means to gauge the performance and effectiveness of an instructor at higher-education institutions. They are often used for promotion/tenure decisions as well as to guide faculty into becoming effective instructors. But the question is whether, as currently implemented at UT Austin, SETs are reliable indicators of (a) effective teaching, and (b) long-lasting, impactful learning?

There exists a gap between instruction and assessment in large introductory physics courses. Recent
projects supported by the PTFs and the Texas Mindset Initiative have focused on classroom instruction and

MSB does not have a standardized way to define or measure rigor in the classroom beyond using class GPAs as a proxy measure. This focus on lower GPA = higher rigor has had the unintended consequence of creating a
culture of acceptance for low student performance, which disproportionately falls on underrepresented
minorties and first-generation students. This project focuses on standardizing the definition and measurement of rigor in the classroom in a manner that supports both faculty development/promotion and student diversity/inclusion.

Mastery of the use and interpretation of statistical techniques requires a lot of practice. Similarly, statistics is only mastered with a lot of practice. However, instructors unfortunately only have a finite amount of time available to create an endless supply of new problems and associated answers. They also do not have an endless amount of time to provide hints to help students find their own way past their misconceptions. In addition, it is very difficult for students to receive immediate feedback to understand what they are doing and what they need to do.