<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<font face="Times New Roman" size="6">
<div><font color="navy"><b>Old Dominion University</b></font></div>
<div><font color="navy"><b>Department of Physics<br>
<br>
</b><font color="#548DD4"><b>Special Seminar</b></font></font></div>
<div><font size="5" color="navy"><br>
<font size="6">Thursday, September 19, 2013<br>
<br>
</font><font color="#548DD4"><b>"Evaluating Teaching Effectiveness: Student scores versus direct measurements of learning"</b></font></font></div>
<div><font size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font size="6" color="#17365D"><b>Dr. Chuck Adler<br>
St. Mary’s College of Maryland</b></font></div>
<div><font size="5" color="#0070C0"> </font></div>
<div><font size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font size="3">Many colleges have students evaluate professors using surveys such as the Instructor and Course Evaluation System (ICES) created by the University of Illinois. Almost all such systems
include questions rating their professor, the course, textbooks, and other similar things on a numerical scale. These evaluations are used both developmentally, to help instructors improve their teaching, and evaluatively, in determining promotions, raises,
and in some cases, tenure. One very good question is whether these surveys can identify effective teaching.
<br>
For the past seven years, the Physics department at St. Mary's College has used the Force Concepts Inventory (FCI) to directly evaluate student learning in our introductory physics courses. The FCI is a 30 question conceptual test of introductory physics
which has been used across the country to examine student learning in such classes. In this talk I will discuss the surprising results we found when we examined correlations between FCI gains (a measure of student learning), teaching methods, and student evaluation
scores in these courses. I will also discuss the three-way collaboration between the Physics department and the offices of Institutional Research and Institutional Technology, and why our study wouldn't have been possible without effective cooperation among
all three.</font></div>
<div><font size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font size="3"><br>
<font size="5"><b>Presentation: PSB 1100<br>
</b></font><font size="5"><b> </b></font><font face="Arial" size="5"><b>12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.</b></font></font></div>
<div><font size="3" color="#0070C0"> </font></div>
<div><font size="5" color="#0070C0"><b>All interested persons are cordially invited to attend.</b></font></div>
<div><font size="3"> </font></div>
<div><font size="3"> </font></div>
</font>
</body>
</html>