Applied Statistics at Penn State Online: Maximizing the Peer Review of Teaching

• Activity Number: 443
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Tuesday, August 11, 2015 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Education
• Author(s): Mosuk Chow* and Glenn Johnson and James L. Rosenberger
• Companies: Penn State and Penn State and Penn State
• Keywords: Online Learning ; Peer Review of Teaching ; Curriculum Review

Abstract

Whether peer review of teaching is employed as professional development or review of performance, this exercise has rarely achieved either goal with success. As our online programs have grown over the last decade our interest in assessing the quality of both teaching and curricula has also grown. We therefore reconsidered the importance of the peer review of online teaching as a valuable opportunity for professional development and a chance to improve of the quality of our online programs. To prepare for this we collect data via mid-semester surveys of students and annual instructor satisfaction surveys. We also provide faculty with a range of opportunities that focus of teaching and learning online including course and curriculum review projects, concept map development, and other workshops. We have modified the Peer Review Guide for Online Teaching at Penn State which addresses the unique aspects of online teaching based on the "7 Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education." This poster presentation examines this tool and explores how the review process capitalizes on course and program evaluation data and the professional development of our faculty.