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