Understanding Teaching Effectiveness

Originally published in March 2025

What is Teaching Effectiveness?

At Laurier, instructors at all career stages engage in developmental cycles of learning, practice, and reflection to advance their teaching effectiveness and positively impact student learning. These developmental paths are guided by opportunities for demonstration and evaluation of teaching effectiveness, commonly occurring for two distinct but related reasons. First, and perhaps most familiar, are summative reviews, i.e. those evaluations that assess achievements and inform colleagues and administrators when making recommendations related to careers. Second, and often ongoing, are formative reviews, i.e. those developmental assessments that advance the quality of teaching by offering feedback on strengths and focused areas for improvements and pedagogical exploration (CAUT 2018; Benton and Young 2018).

Teaching Effectiveness (TE), however, can be challenging to define given variations of teaching and learning contexts, including:

Specific course contexts, such as class size, program level, discipline, mode of delivery, or cultures of educational relationships.
Stakeholders’ perceptions and experiences, including those of students, peers, community or political actors, as well as your own.
Institutional quality frameworks, cultures, agreements, and policies, which could be Laurier-wide or Faculty/program-led or more governmental or international in character (Devlin and Samarawickrema 2010).

Given these contexts and perspectives, it is not surprising that there is no universal definition of effective teaching, nor of teaching quality, quality assurance, or excellence (Gourlay & Stevenson 2017; Schindler et al. 2015; Skelton 2004; Wood and Su 2017). At the same time, pedagogical literature can offer a synthesis of research and categorization of key dimensions, competencies, or criteria to guide the significant conversations and collaborations involved in developing TE at Laurier. Starting frameworks to explore, include:

FATE criteria (includes rubrics): highlights 4 key areas, including aligned course design, scholarly teaching, inclusive and learner-centered strategies, and a commitment to reflective professional development.
A Developmental Framework for Teaching Expertise in Post-Secondary Education: focuses on 3 foundational mindsets – inclusive, learner-centered, and collaborative ways of knowing and being – evaluated in a developmental continuum and applied in major areas of teaching expertise commonly seen in dossier sections.
Effective Teaching Practice Framework: includes 25 core teaching competencies, organized into 5 major areas: designing an effective course, establishing productive learning environments, using active learning strategies; promoting higher order thinking; assessing to inform instruction and promoting learning.

These frameworks are designed to be specific and observable, while allowing for diverse pedagogical approaches that are impactful for student learning and improved outcomes, such as constructive alignment, student-centred teaching (vs content-driven or instructor-centred), transparent assessment design, pedagogies of care, experiential learning, digital pedagogies, universal design for learning, culturally-relevant and equity-minded teaching.

When taken together, these contexts and dimensions prepare mindsets for the complexities of how people learn and the richness and possibilities of impactful teaching practices – one size does not fit all in teaching or in learning (Simonson, Earl & Frary, 2022). In a practical way, these multiple perspectives and measures can offer guidance on how instructors might present and collect evidence that demonstrates their teaching effectiveness for self-reflection, growth, impact, and career development and offer numerous windows into how TE can be assessed or viewed.

Presenting and Collecting Evidence of Teaching Effectiveness

At Laurier, evidence of teaching effectiveness is commonly collected and integrated at different points of an instructor’s career path, including CVs, Annual Reports of Activity, and Teaching Dossiers for different purposes such as employment, internal or external awards, or tenure and promotion.

Collecting evidence is best practiced as an ongoing effort drawing on varied sources that help to put any one source of evidence or any one moment in time in the wider and more reliable portrayal of an instructor’s successes, innovations, challenges, and improvements (Simonson, Earl and Frary, 2022).

Evidence from Students

Formal Institutional Evaluations: Qualitative and Quantitative Student Evaluations
Informal Feedback: Mid-term formative feedback strategies, unsolicited emails, Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)
Artifacts of Learning: Student work that highlights impact and success in meeting learning outcomes
Additional Roles: Such as supervision or mentorship

Evidence from Self

Experience: List of Courses, Teaching Roles, Responsibilities
Course Materials: Sample outlines, assessment descriptions and rubrics, course materials, or lesson plans
Instructional Presence and Relationships: Feedback on Assignments; Approach to Office Hours, Mentorship, Careers, or Study Groups; Responses to Student Questions; use of MyLS
Professional Teaching Development: Activities that enhance learning about pedagogy to improve teaching knowledge and practices, including workshops, courses, research
Self-Reflection: Current and future goals, impact of strategies on student learning outcomes and achievement, response to any feedback from students to show changes made and commitment to improvement.

Evidence from Peers

Feedback: Unsolicited emails, letters of support, recognition of value in program progression of students, peer observations (see new program below!)
Contributions: Invitation and participation in developing teaching capacity with colleagues, dept, or community
Publications: Related to teaching, including podcasts, media, Laurier spotlights
Successes: Describe Internal or External Awards, Fellowships, evaluated and supported by peers