(Source: University Education Management, 2016, 10(2): 86-91)
The quality of education is the core issue in the development of higher education and the lifeline of popularization of higher education. Since the quality of higher education became a common concern among academic circles around the world in the 1980s, education and teaching quality assurance activities in universities around the world have gradually become an international movement. The teaching quality assurance system involves teaching decision-making, standards, evaluation, training, policies and implementation, etc. It is a complex system composed of a set of systems and a series of activities based on the consensus that "teaching quality is the lifeline of the w88 casino". Under the guidance of modern educational concepts, students, the "consumers" in higher education, have gradually participated in the construction of the teaching quality assurance system and contributed to the improvement and improvement of teaching quality in colleges and universities. Among them, student evaluation, as the fundamental system for ensuring the quality of teaching in colleges and universities, plays an important role. As the world's top research university, Harvard University in the United States has always attached great importance to the quality of education and teaching, and has established a complete teaching quality assurance system. The student evaluation of teaching-teaching quality monitoring method implemented since 1925 is even more representative among American universities. Starting from the perspective of Harvard University students' evaluation of teaching, the article explores the core, system and path of the construction of Harvard's teaching quality assurance system, thereby discovering experience that can be used for reference in better building the teaching quality assurance system in my country's universities and realizing the dream of a world-class university.
1. The way Harvard students evaluate teaching
Harvard University conducts full-process quality monitoring of education and teaching. Student evaluation practice activities are one of them and a continuous process, including Q Evaluation and Early Feedback.
(1) Course Teaching Q Evaluation
Harvard College is the oldest college at Harvard University. It is now part of the Harvard Undergraduate Division under the College of Arts and Sciences and has cultivated many outstanding students. The history of its course evaluation can be traced back to 1925, when Crimson H. first asked students to evaluate some large courses. At first, it served as a secret guide for college courses and was called the Confi Guide. In 1973, the Committee on Undergraduate Education (CUE) of Harvard University decided to formalize the course evaluation process, and established the first course evaluation in 1975, which is widely known as CUE evaluation. In 2005, CUE evaluation changed from the original paper form distributed in the classroom to an online evaluation system. Subsequently, in 2006, Harvard College of Arts and Sciences and its graduate division integrated the course evaluation system, which was renamed Q-evaluation because it is no longer run solely by the Undergraduate Education Committee and is now managed by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Harvard College Institutional Research Office. The Q evaluation system is currently used to evaluate nearly 1,000 courses and more than 2,000 teachers each semester.
1. Organization and implementation.Harvard’s course teaching Q evaluation is scheduled at the end of each semester. Two weeks before the end of the semester, students will receive emails asking them to evaluate the courses they have taken. Students click on the link (my.harvard.edu) and log in with their Harvard University ID to conduct online course evaluations. They can also check their own evaluation status or conduct new evaluations, etc., and can see the evaluation results of any course after the deadline. It is worth noting that before students conduct teaching evaluation, teachers will receive an email with course evaluation instructions two weeks in advance and are required to follow the link to register in advance for the courses they teach. The leader of each course also ensures that all lecturers, teaching assistants and administrative staff for that course receive student evaluations and feedback. Teachers have the right to freely compile three questions to add to the evaluation questionnaire for this course to test student feedback. The Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning helps teachers design self-set questions in evaluation questionnaires, covering four different areas: student learning and development, course parts, teacher-student interaction, grade and evaluation, and provides specific suggestions for preparation: first, it is simple and direct, second, it is targeted at individual students, and third, the answer dimensions are divided appropriately. This can not only help teachers prepare more standardized and appropriate evaluation questions, but also improve the actual effectiveness of students' evaluation of teaching
2. Publication and use of evaluation results.Course teaching Q evaluation is a win-win process. Students’ evaluations can not only provide course selection guidance for the next students, but students’ evaluation feedback on teachers will also help teachers teach better, thereby helping both teachers and students grow and improve. After the course evaluation of each semester, the Q Evaluation Committee will summarize and report the evaluation results, which will be published in the form of Q Guide every year. Since 2009, the online course evaluation tool has been integrated with Q Data, providing students with a more convenient way to obtain and compare course evaluation data. Students can check online all courses and activity schedules offered this academic year, check the Q score of the corresponding course through application, and directly link to its course website for browsing, so as to choose courses that meet their needs. Teachers attach great importance to students’ evaluation of their courses and their own teaching. Data shows that more than half of teachers will log on to the website to check the results of student evaluations last semester, and will also make full use of these evaluation results to change their teaching methods, course arrangements, etc. However, all teachers' verbatim evaluation results remain confidential, which safeguards the teachers' legitimate rights and privacy. The dean of the college can view the evaluation results of all teachers and teaching assistants in the college; the course leader can view the evaluation results of the course, and can also obtain the evaluation results of each teaching assistant; and the teaching assistants can only obtain their own teaching evaluation results. In view of the uniqueness of students and the diverse expressions of evaluations, teachers cannot fully understand students' evaluation results. The Derek Bock Teaching Center specializes in providing services to help teachers analyze Q evaluation results so that they can find existing problems and propose solutions. Through a summary of the report, the Derek Bock Center for Teaching found that there are currently four problems in students' evaluation of teachers in Harvard's classrooms: teachers have good character but do not know how to teach; teachers are indifferent to students; teaching content and form do not meet the needs of undergraduates; teachers are indifferent and hostile to students. In response to these problems, the Derek Bock Teaching Center has organized autumn and winter teacher seminars, micro-teaching, video teaching and other methods to help teachers solve existing doubts and is committed to better teaching and improving teaching quality.
3. Q evaluation reward mechanism.通过课程教学Q 评价的方式，德里克·博克教学中心每学期都会举办一次特别的招待会，奖励本学期在教学方面表现出色的教师，分别设立三个奖项：哈佛大学荣誉教学证书（Harvard University Certificate of Distinction in Teaching）、哈佛大学卓越教学证书（Harvard University Certificate of Teaching Excellence）和德里克·博克奖（Derek C. Bok Award）。 The Harvard University Honorary Teaching Certificate is used to reward teaching assistants and course assistants; the Harvard University Teaching Excellence Certificate is used to reward lecturers and tutors. You must obtain a comprehensive score of more than 4.5 on the 5-item Q-Evaluation Scale before you can apply for these two certificates; the Derek Bock Award is awarded to teaching assistants who have demonstrated outstanding performance in undergraduate teaching. There are only five places each year, and they are nominated and recommended by each college before selection. These incentives encourage teachers to better devote themselves to teaching and strengthen their teaching awareness, thus improving the overall teaching quality of Harvard University.
(2) Early feedback evaluation
1. Organization and implementation.Early feedback evaluation is organized and run by the Derek Bock Teaching Center. It encourages all teachers to conduct surveys on students’ classroom teaching experience in the third and fourth weeks of the course to obtain feedback so that they can adjust their course content, teaching methods, etc. in a timely manner. The evaluation scale for early feedback is developed by teachers under the guidance of the Derek Bock Teaching Center. It mainly includes five aspects: course organization, teaching effectiveness, reading and assignments, student learning, student burden, effort and perception. The question types are divided into two categories: dimensional multiple-choice questions and open-ended questions, as shown in Table 1.
Table 1 Student Feedback Questions
2. Evaluation method.Early feedback evaluation includes two evaluation methods: one is paper forms and group face-to-face interviews. Course evaluation is carried out by distributing paper forms in class, but this will take up valuable classroom teaching time. The Derek Bock Teaching Center provides three different paper evaluation questionnaires for course learning and laboratory learning, making it convenient for teachers to weave their own evaluation questionnaires. In small classes, especially when evaluating specific issues, an outsider organizes a structured face-to-face interview to bring more meaningful evaluation and feedback to teachers' classroom teaching. The second is online feedback evaluation, including two online evaluation tools: complete course evaluation (Early Feedback for Entire Courses) and specific discussion class, experimental class and workshop course evaluation (Early Feedback for Discussion, Lab or Studio Sections). Teachers can choose any of them to prepare an evaluation questionnaire and notify students via email for evaluation. Students can take online assessments at any time within the allotted time limit, but this runs the risk of low return rates. In order to ensure that students participate in early feedback evaluation, teachers ask students to print out and submit the confirmation page after evaluation, and also give students some points for class participation as a reward for completing early feedback.3. Publication and use of evaluation results.After the early feedback evaluation, teachers openly communicate with students based on the feedback results to let students know the specific results of the evaluation, and communicate to students through whole-class discussions or emails that they take the evaluation seriously, decide to accept suggestions, and work hard to make changes, and reform teaching content, methods, and styles in practice. This can not only help teachers improve the quality of teaching in a targeted manner, but also cultivate students' courage to question, criticize and challenge authority, mobilize students' participation and enthusiasm in the classroom, and also enhance the interaction between teachers and students and establish a good teacher-student relationship. In addition, the Derek Bock Teaching Center also uses the method of handling Q evaluation results to help teachers understand the early feedback evaluation results, find out the crux of the problem, and jointly agree on solutions to promote teachers to better adjust course teaching and improve teaching quality on the basis of meeting student needs.
2. The construction of Harvard University’s teaching quality assurance system from the perspective of student evaluation
(1) The core of the construction of Harvard University’s teaching quality assurance system from the perspective of student evaluation subjects
Harvard University student evaluation is a process that teachers and students participate in together. Teachers and the courses they teach are the objects of student evaluation. In order to fully protect the rights and interests of teachers and avoid teachers’ resistance to students’ teaching evaluation work, Harvard University allows teachers to prepare their own questions and add them to the evaluation questionnaire. After the evaluation, confidentiality measures are taken for each teacher’s detailed evaluation and help them analyze the evaluation results one by one, thereby maximizing the value of teachers in their own positions. Students are the initiators of teaching evaluation activities. They objectively evaluate teachers and courses based on their personal feelings. After the teaching evaluation activities are completed, the evaluation results become the basis and reference for the next students to choose courses. In this way, students have the right to choose learning subjects, learning methods and teaching teachers. The w88 casino fully takes into account the dominant position of students in the w88 casino and meets the basic interests of students as "consumers". The demonstration of the interactive process between teachers and students in student evaluation highlights the core of the construction of Harvard University's teaching quality assurance system - the emphasis on the joint participation of teachers and students. Harvard University's teaching quality assurance system is a complex system that includes all aspects of introduction, monitoring, operation, evaluation and feedback. It is not independently constructed by individual management units, but is the result of the joint responsibility and joint participation of teachers, students, and administrative staff across the w88 casino. Teachers are the central force in teaching quality assurance. Harvard University has specially established the Office of Teacher Development and Diversity and the Teacher Work Development Center to train, supervise and serve teachers, and increase the enthusiasm of teachers to participate in the construction of the teaching quality assurance system. Students are the focus of teaching quality assurance. In addition to attaching importance to students' participation in course teaching evaluation, Harvard University has also established a student learning consultation office to encourage students to organize peer tutoring (Peer Tutoring) on their own and exchange problems encountered in course learning, so that students can truly participate in the construction of a guarantee system to improve teaching quality.
(2) The institutionalization of Harvard University’s teaching quality assurance system from the perspective of student evaluation institutions
The Derek Bock Center for Teaching and Learning at Harvard University was established in 1975. Its core purpose is to promote the improvement of undergraduate teaching quality by providing resources, plans and excellent teaching support to Harvard teachers. It provides students and teachers with numerous resources so that they can promote each other and improve. One of its important responsibilities is to carry out and assist in course teaching evaluation. The center obtains students' feelings and opinions on the courses they have studied through interviews, online evaluations, etc., and uses this as a reference standard to help teachers understand students' unique and diverse expressions, and help them analyze the evaluation results, so that teachers can have a deeper understanding of their own shortcomings and give them suggestions, thereby further promoting a more comprehensive and standardized development of student evaluation work. It can be seen from this that the Derek Bock Teaching Center, as a teaching service organization of Harvard University, plays an important role in quality assurance work. Its responsibilities cover all aspects of the teaching process, systematically arrange the originally complex quality assurance matters, and reflect the institutionalization of the construction of the assurance system. Harvard University implements a three-level quality control system of w88 casino-college-department, with specialized agencies and departments at each level responsible for the monitoring, management and evaluation of teaching quality. Administrative departments at the w88 casino level play a macro-control role in terms of funding investment, personnel allocation, and technical support for teaching quality assurance. They also conduct strict approval and supervision of courses offered by teachers through the FAS Registrars Office, thereby improving the overall course quality. Institutions at the w88 casino and department levels focus on supervising the implementation and implementation of training objectives, course content, teacher-student evaluation, etc. throughout the teaching process. For example, the Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning established by Harvard Business w88 casino in 2004 promotes innovation in business w88 casino teaching methods and improvement of teaching quality through various forms such as training teachers, exchanging teaching practices, and organizing seminars. At the same time, Harvard University's teaching quality assurance agencies at all levels have formulated detailed and standardized management rules and regulations. For example, the Derek Bock Teaching Center Work Procedures formulated by the Faculty Director Search Committee stipulate the responsibilities and tasks of the center's teachers, teaching assistants, teaching communities, and management personnel, laying the foundation for the institutionalization of Harvard University's teaching quality assurance system.
(3) The path to construct Harvard University’s teaching quality assurance system from the student evaluation process
Harvard University’s student evaluation runs through the entire course learning process. It does not classify teachers and courses in a consequential manner, but develops to help teachers gradually improve their teaching skills and improve their teaching level. Through feedback, all teachers can realize their strengths and weaknesses and understand the areas they need to improve and the direction of development, thereby achieving the purpose of improving the quality of teaching. It is precisely because teachers can constantly get feedback from students during the teaching process that they can adjust course content and teaching methods at any time, so that they do not deviate from the correct teaching track, just like a satellite accurately entering a predetermined orbit, perfectly achieving teaching goals and ensuring teaching quality. The combination of process evaluation and result evaluation is used in students' teaching evaluation, which fully demonstrates the path of Harvard University's teaching quality assurance system construction - starting from the teaching process, aiming to cultivate high-quality talents, and carrying out various forms and diverse teaching quality assurance activities. Institutions at all levels of Harvard University have established a complete quality assurance system for the entire teaching process: Before the start of teaching activities, we follow a strict and scientific teacher appointment system to build the world's top teaching staff. At the same time, we maintain the lowest student admission rate in the United States all year round to select high-quality students, which ensures the input quality of teaching subjects from the source. During teaching activities, on the one hand, teaching is organized according to course objectives and evaluated regularly, on the other hand, it focuses on the collection and processing of teacher and student teaching quality information, which is summarized by the Institutional Research Office to the Harvard Data Center (Data Center). Center), which ensures the quality of teaching operations in the process; after teaching activities, the teaching quality evaluation feedback mechanism and learning support system are used to check and fill in the gaps for teachers and students after quality evaluation, assisting them to improve teaching quality and learning quality, thereby ensuring the output quality of teachers and students. It can be seen that the construction of Harvard University's teaching quality assurance system adheres to the path of "goals-process-methods", with the ultimate goal of cultivating high-level teachers and high-quality students and realizing the important function of talent cultivation in colleges and universities.
3. Inspiration from the construction of Harvard University’s teaching quality assurance system
The above article analyzes the core, system and path of the construction of Harvard University's teaching quality assurance system through the perspective of student evaluation. It is not difficult to discover the experience that can be used for reference, thus providing a reference and basis for promoting the construction of the teaching quality assurance system of my country's universities and better promoting the teaching quality of my country's higher education.
(1) Encourage teachers and students to participate in the construction of the teaching quality assurance system and enrich the participants of quality assurance
Harvard University attaches great importance to the role of teachers and students in the construction of the teaching quality assurance system, and encourages them to actively participate in various matters of teaching quality monitoring, evaluation and management, and to examine teaching from multiple angles, thus ensuring the dominant status of teachers and students. In the construction of the teaching quality assurance system in our country's colleges and universities, administrative personnel often take the lead in organizing evaluation and supervision, which are mostly formal and superficial. Students and teachers are not actually involved, and the role of teachers and students in the construction of the quality assurance system is not truly brought into play. Drawing on the experience of Harvard University, our universities must, on the one hand, increase the penetration of the concept of teachers' dominant position in the construction of teaching quality assurance system in the process of building teaching staff, delegate power to teachers from the w88 casino and college levels, and organize various peer review meetings and quality monitoring groups, and establish scientific and reasonable reward mechanisms to mobilize teachers to participate in the construction of quality assurance systems. On the other hand, it is necessary to ensure that a certain number of student representatives can participate in the w88 casino-level and college-level quality assurance institutions, and students' attitudes and suggestions should be taken into account in the construction of the system. Special attention should be paid to the development of student evaluation work, and the evaluation results should be used to reform teachers and courses, and timely feedback should be given to students to form interactions and exchanges with students.
(2) Establish a two-level professional teaching quality assurance agency at the w88 casino level to promote the institutionalization of system construction
In the process of building Harvard University's teaching quality assurance system, the dedicated quality assurance agencies at all levels within the w88 casino played a decisive role. They provided professional services and guidance for the assurance of teaching quality, improved work efficiency, and promoted the institutionalization process of system construction. In particular, the Derek Bock Teaching Center of Harvard University is not only the organizer of quality assurance work, but also the initiator of student evaluation activities, and a facilitator of improving teacher teaching quality, which has established the important position of the Teacher Teaching Development Center in the teaching quality assurance system. In recent years, my country has also begun to pay attention to the role of teaching development centers in the process of building a teaching quality assurance system in colleges and universities. In 2012, the Department of Education selected 30 national-level teacher teaching development demonstration centers such as Xiamen University in accordance with the requirements of the "Opinions of the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance on the Implementation of the "Undergraduate Teaching Quality and Teaching Reform Project in Colleges and Universities" during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, and incorporated the construction of teacher teaching development centers into the w88 casino's overall development plan to provide strong support for its construction and development. It can be seen that the construction of my country's teaching quality assurance system draws on the model of Harvard University. The top priority of each w88 casino is to implement and improve its own teacher teaching development center and actively undertake quality assurance work. It will be used as a center to organize teaching evaluation, implement quality monitoring, carry out teacher teaching training, etc., so as to ensure the institutionalization, standardization and high efficiency of system construction.
(3) Persist in improving the teaching quality assurance system in the teaching process and achieve sustainable development of system construction
The construction of Harvard University's teaching quality assurance system runs through the entire teaching process, focusing on the input quality of students and teachers, the operation quality, and the final output quality of teachers and students. The fundamental purpose is to achieve its goal of cultivating compound talents who are knowledgeable, thinking, adaptable, and innovative. In the construction of the teaching quality assurance system, our country's universities should learn from the experience of Harvard University: on the one hand, establish a full-process teaching quality monitoring system, take into account various factors such as courses, teaching resources, and teaching environment, and monitor all aspects of classroom teaching to ensure high-quality teaching; on the other hand, establish a formative A teaching quality evaluation system that combines evaluation and summative evaluation, formulates a scientific and reasonable evaluation cycle, establishes institutional norms for student evaluation, peer evaluation, and expert evaluation, and truly forms a strict and complete evaluation system, thereby promoting the improvement of internal teaching quality in universities and achieving sustainable development in the construction of teaching quality assurance systems in universities.(Issue 2, 2016)
About the author:Jiang Shan, a teaching assistant at the Graduate w88 casino of Education of Nanjing University and a doctoral candidate, is engaged in university curriculum and teaching research.Quote this article:Jiang Shan. Analysis on the Construction of Harvard University’s Teaching Quality Assurance System—Based on the Perspective of Student Evaluation of Teaching [J]. Higher Education Education Management, 2016, 10(2): 86-91.
