Tools and Resources

This webpage lists many resources to help faculty work with diverse students, including strategies for working with specific minority groups, such as students with disabilities. The resources are related to diversity and inclusion.

This document suggests a variety of testing models and explains why each is effective. They are alternatives or supplements to the "mid-term and a final" model.

Making the Right Impressions on the First Day of Class
What can be done then to make a positive first impression in the classroom? In a study
(Hayward, 2001) where students were given a survey after the first class meeting, factors
contributing to positive perceptions of teaching effectiveness were identified.
The power of knowing, in the first two seconds, is our ability to make quick judgments. Think back to when you were in school and how long did it take you to size up a professor? Did you know the first day how good a teacher was, or did it take several classes or the entire semester? Research has found that students watching a silent two-second video clip of a teacher they have never met reach very similar conclusions about that teacher’s effectiveness when compared to students who have sat in the teacher’s class for a semester.
Students have been found to quickly size up a professor on these four factors:

What the Best College Teachers Do
Ken Bain, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA (2004)
The publication, What the Best College Teachers Do, is based on a fifteen-year study of nearly one hundred college teachers from various fields and universities. Author Ken Bain tries to “capture the collective scholarship of some of the best teachers in the United States, to record not just what they think, but most of all, to begin to conceptualize their practices.” In this book, you will find insights on how to engage and challenge students

This is a one-page tip sheet that guides instructors in thinking about how to "decode" their discipline for students and to strategize ways to help students navigate the challenges of learning in the discipline.

This one-page tip sheet provides background and approaches to guide instructors in directing students toward mastery of content.

Report of results from a 2012 survey of student and faculty perceptions of the quality of instruction at Penn State’s Commonwealth Campuses. This study focuses on what Commonwealth Campus students and faculty believe are the most important elements of quality instruction, their frequency at the campuses, students' ratings of their instruction, factors that differentiate how students perceive quality, comparison of results from Commonwealth Campuses and University Park, and whether perceptions have changed over time.

Report of results from a 2011 survey of student and faculty perceptions of the quality of instruction at Penn State’s University Park campus. This study focuses on what students and faculty believe are the most important elements of quality instruction, their frequency at University Park, students' ratings of their instruction, factors that influence students' ratings, and changes in perceptions compared to 1996 survey results.

Report of results from a 2012 survey of student and faculty perceptions of the quality of instruction of courses offered through Penn State’s World Campus. This study focuses on what students and faculty believe are the most important elements of quality instruction, their frequency in World Campus courses, students' ratings of their instruction, factors that influence students' ratings, and comparison of results from World Campus, the Commonwealth Campuses, and University Park.

The Midterm/Midsemester Class Interview (or Small Group Instructional Diagnosis, SGID) is a process designed to help instructors learn what their students think about how the course is going. Students identify elements of the class that are helping them learn and offer suggestions to strengthen the course. We recommend using this procedure in the middle of the semester, after students have received at least one grade. The process involves three steps: 1) meeting with an instructional consultant to discuss the instructor's objectives for the process; 2) a class interview with small groups and a whole class discussion; and a post-interview summary and discussion of the results with the consultant.

This document describes the difference between goals and objectives and provides lists of explicit verbs that can be used to write clear, action- and behavior-oriented objectives for students or faculty (depending on the focus of your proposal) that will demonstrate project success.

FERN WILLITS AND MARK BRENNAN (2015) The University as a Community of Learning
Perceptions of Students and Teachers in Three Settings, The Journal of the World Universities Forum
Part of the Quality of Instruction (QOI) series supported by a Schreyer Institute grant

This report focuses on using student ratings data in the faculty evaluation process and is based on Linse's 2017 peer-reviewed publication, with additions specific to Penn State and the SRTEs. Linse, A. R. (2017). Interpreting and using student ratings data: Guidance for faculty serving as administrators and on evaluation committees. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 54, 94–106; http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2016.12.004.

These PowerPoint slides accompanied a presentation by Linda Suskie delivered via Zoom on Tuesday, Apr. 25, 2017. Multiple-choice tests can have a place in many courses. If they’re well designed, they can yield useful information on student achievement of many important course objectives, including some thinking skills. An item analysis of the results can shed light on how well the questions are working as well as what students have learned. Viewers will be able to use principles of good question construction to develop tests, develop test questions that assess thinking skills as well as conceptual understanding, and use item analysis to understand and improve both test questions and student learning. Be sure to open the handouts file listed below as you view the presentation!

These handouts (minus quizzes for test security) accompanied a presentation by Linda Suskie delivered via Zoom on Tuesday, Apr. 25, 2017. Multiple-choice tests can have a place in many courses. If they’re well designed, they can yield useful information on student achievement of many important course objectives, including some thinking skills. An item analysis of the results can shed light on how well the questions are working as well as what students have learned. Viewers will be able to use principles of good question construction to develop tests, develop test questions that assess thinking skills as well as conceptual understanding, and use item analysis to understand and improve both test questions and student learning.

Concept inventories are designed to assess student's knowledge of particular scientific concepts. This is an article that describes a concept inventory that assesses statistics knowledge. This link does not take you to the concept inventory itself, but provides information about how to access the inventory.

The Lecture/Discussion Facilitation Template was distributed at the 2017 Lilly Evidence-based Teaching & Learning Conference held in Bethesda, MD June 1 - 4, 2017. Use it during lectures as a low-stakes, largely anonymous method to gauge students’ understanding, as a pop quiz or survey, or to keep track of in-class group activities. The template can improve student participation and engagement by minimizing their fears of low (or even “too high”) performance before their classmates, and it provides a demonstrable, observable, measurable, and active way to gain a sense of how well students are “getting it,” beyond the glint in their eyes. In that sense, it serves as a quick formative assessment tool that can be customized on demand.

Student ratings are not the only option to provide evidence in the evaluation of teaching. There is a broad range of alternatives to consider beyond student ratings in the delicate decision-making processes to improve teaching and determine the promotion and tenure of faculty. Yet, despite the constant barrage of attacks on the integrity, reliability, and validity of student ratings, their use in higher education is at an all-time high.
So what do student ratings actually contribute to decisions about teaching and faculty? Should they be abandoned? Should you focus on the other options? This article examines student ratings and 14 alternatives to guide your plans to evaluate teaching in your department.

Professor Christine Hockings (UK), April 2010
Inclusive learning and teaching in higher education refers to the ways in which pedagogy, curricula and assessment are designed and delivered to engage students in learning that is meaningful, relevant and accessible to all. It embraces a view of the individual and individual difference as the source of diversity that can enrich the lives and learning of others.
This publication includes summaries of key research on how inclusion practices impact students' learning, identities, and belonging.

This list of inclusive teaching strategies was created as part of the Schreyer Institute's Creating Inclusive Courses workshop. The workshop activity is also available in this repository. The list was compiled over many years and is intended to help instructors recognize what they might already be doing to demonstrate that all students are welcome contributors to the course learning community. This is not a "checklist." Creating inclusive course environments requires sincerity, intentionality, and reflection, not simply enacting a list of strategies. These strategies are most effective when combined with other efforts such as critical self-reflection reflection, learning about antiracist pedagogies, and taking steps to decolonize our classrooms.

This is a workshop activity used in our Inclusive Courses workshop. It is intended to help instructors to recognize the wide range of things that they currently do, or can do, to demonstrate to students that each has unique contributions to make in the course learning community.

Exit slips are an active learning strategy that requires students to put information into their own words, so they can internalize the content, identify gaps in their understanding, or alert the instructor to potential problems. This document contains examples of prompts for use in any course.

The purpose of this document is to provide information for instructors who are concerned about how to handle election-related student comments and questions. The pre-election information below provides information about how to respond to student questions about voting, as well as relevant Penn State policies. The post-election section includes information about what you might consider as you plan for your course sessions that occur immediately after the election. Some of the resources were developed for the 2020 election but are still useful for this election.

This is a 2-page flyer provided by the CIRTL Network (Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning). It includes quotes from participants about how participating benefitted them. Many are now professors. The second page is focuses on additional benefits for students, faculty, and academic units.

The University of Montana Curry Health Center developed this toolkit for faculty based on the well-documented concept that student wellbeing is critical to learning, success and persistence. The toolkit includes course design suggestions about a wide variety of topics including student's personal development, flexibility, social connection, optimal challenge, developing a positive course culture, inclusivity, instructor support, and responding to a crisis.

Many instructors feel that the student ratings process is something 'done to' them. Annotation offers a way for instructors to interpret their own ratings rather than rely on accurate interpretation by others not involved in the course. The annotation serves as a cover page for the summary report available to faculty from the Student Course Feedback (e.g., SRTEs) the student ratings system (rateteaching.psu.edu). This document identifies key elements of an effective annotation as well as an example of a one-page annotation for a fictional course.

Handout contains prompts for reflecting on one's syllabus, a class, an assignment, and student learning. Reflective prompts that support brainstorming ideas for the portfolio support the early stages of the development of a teaching portfolio.

This rubric for educators presents four traits focused on areas unique to the capabilities and limitations of AI as well as ethical considerations for the use of AI. Prepare your assignments for the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI) by reviewing and revising writing prompts before sharing with students.

Penn State’s Faculty Assessment of Teaching Framework assesses teaching using evidence from three sources, peer review, self-assessment, and student feedback. The framework also identifies four Elements of Effective Teaching, which provide a foundation of understanding, advance a shared language for communication, and serve as standards against which the combined sources of evidence are judged. Academic units may also use the elements as an invitation to discuss other important aspects of effective teaching. This document includes teaching examples by element.

Instructors are the most important determinant of student participation in the Student Educational Experience Questionnaire (SEEQ). Students are more likely to complete the questionnaire if they know that instructors read their feedback and value it as a source of ideas to improve the course.

The questionnaire includes seven items, which are the same for every instructor. Responses to items 1-4 are available to the instructor and their academic unit head. Items 5-7 are provided only to the instructor. Fall semester 2023 is the first to use this questionnaire. It replaces the SRTE.

Instructors are the most important determinant of student participation. Students are more likely to submit feedback if they know that instructors value their feedback and use it to make improvements in the course. Below are suggestions for how you might discuss mid-semester feedback with your students.

The Faculty Senate revision to Student Policy 42-27 Class Attendance states that instructors may provide remote asynchronous instruction on a November election day so students can participate in or work the polls at local, state or federal elections. We offer this guidance in preparation for such instruction.

All instructors will need to address a course disruption at some point in their teaching career. When instructors do not have response strategies that can be activated in that moment, it can lead to undermine student confidence in you and may send the wrong message to those who have been targeted. The phrases below can be adapted so that you are prepared to use them. Developed by Tasha Souza, Ph.D., Director of the BUILD Program at Boise State University, developed this interactive communication framework for instructors to use in the immediate moment.

A teaching philosophy is more than an instructor’s beliefs about teaching and learning and paints a picture of what it is like to be a student in the course. It explains why a faculty member does what they do in their courses. It can be a foundational document for course design, narrative statements, and self-reflection.

A teaching philosophy is typically a 1-2-page narrative. It describes how learning happens in a course through examples learning activities, instructor- and student-student interactions, assessments. See Writing a Teaching Philosophy.

Students may bring their thoughts and feelings as well as their trauma related to the violence and humanitarian crisis of the Israel-Gaza conflict into your course, even if your course material is not related to current events. This resource describes actions you can take for your students (and yourself) as well as Trauma Informed Pedagogy.

The current violent international conflict in Israel and Gaza may cause your students to be concerned about their safety and that of family and community members. The tensions may lead to increases in hate crimes against Jews and Muslims around the world. The conflict could also trigger strong emotions and opinions, which may impact your students. This resource provide guidance about course discussions of the conflict and how to avoid (or confront) antisemitism and Islamophobia.

A sense of belonging is students’ perception of social support on campus, connectedness, and experience of feeling accepted, respected, mattering, and valued by the community or people on campus, such as faculty, staff, and peers (Strayhorn, 2012). Based on four domains of sense of belonging that Ahn and Davis (2020) suggest (academic engagement, social engagement, surroundings, and personal space), this resource provides practical guidance for cultivating a sense of belonging in learning environments.

The Midterm/Midsemester Class Interview (or Small Group Instructional Diagnosis, SGID) is a process designed to help instructors learn what their students think about how the course is going. Students identify elements of the class that are helping them learn and offer suggestions to strengthen the course. We recommend using this procedure in the middle of the semester, after students have received at least one grade. The process involves three steps: 1) meeting with an instructional consultant to discuss the instructor's objectives for the process; 2) a class interview with small groups and a whole class discussion; and a post-interview summary and discussion of the results with the consultant.

Research suggests that the tone of the syllabus communicates an instructor’s teaching philosophy and how the instructor communicates with students (Boysen et al, 2015). Additionally, the tone of the syllabus evokes perceptions of the instructor being warm, approachable, and motivating for learners (Harnish & Bridges, 2011; Wheeler, 2019).

Research indicates that learner-centered syllabi positively impact students’ perception of instructor
effectiveness and rapport with instructors (Harrington & Gaber-Quilen, 2015). Moreover, learnercentered syllabi can lead to higher levels of motivation and engagement, achievement, and rapport
between students (Karanja & Grant, 2020). This resource provides suggestions for constructing a
learner-centered syllabus.

The Student Success-Oriented Action Plan is a six-page guide to methods and techniques to increase inclusion and equity through course design and delivery.

The purpose of this activity is for participants or students to get to know each other as individuals with distinct histories, backgrounds, and traditions. Knowing something personal about others helps learning communities and teams function more effectively.

The Where I'm From icebreaker activity was developed based on a poem by George Ella Lyon (http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html). This teaching activity is described in: Christensen, Linda (1998) Inviting Student Lives into the Classroom: Where I'm From. Rethinking Schools, 12(2): 22-23. Available on-line at: https://rethinkingschools.org/articles/where-i-m-from/

Large classes are among the most important because many students enrolled are new to the college experience. The big challenges of teaching large classes include finding ways to engage students, providing timely feedback, and managing logistics. When faced with these challenges, many instructors revert to lectures and multiple-choice tests. There are alternatives. This special report describes some alternative teaching and course management techniques to get students actively involved without an inordinate amount of work on the instructor’s part. From the Teaching Professor, Magna.

Short descriptions of 22 activities to engage students in both large and small classes.

Active Learning, Strategies for Success is written for instructors who are not practiced at teaching actively. It was created after hearing from faculty "That active learning stuff doesn't work for me. I tried it and the students hated it!" Following a 4-step process can help ensure that your early attempts at active teaching are more successful. These steps have been used by hundreds of faculty to effectively introduce students to active learning. For suggestions of activities look for "Interactive Learning" in the repository search box.

This resource is from Texas Tech University and is written by Jenny Lloyd-Strovas, Ph.D. at TTU's Teaching, Learning, and Professional Development Center
Texas Tech University in August, 2015.
Teaching large classes can be a daunting experience. How do you keep students engaged and active without losing control of the classroom? With so many students, how do you know if they are learning? Should you attempt to take attendance or risk losing students? How do you build rapport when learning 200 names isn’t a possibility? If you have taught (or are preparing to teach) a large class, you have probably asked yourself these questions. Here, I will discuss possible solutions for these challenges and more. This resource is organized to be a quick and efficient reference for challenges that you are experiencing in your classroom.

Abstract: Writing multiple-choice test items to measure student learning in higher education is a challenge. Based on extensive scholarly research and experience, the author describes various item formats, offers guidelines for creating these items, and provides many examples of both good and bad test items. He also suggests some shortcuts for developing test items. All of this advice is based on extensive scholarly research and experience. Creating valid multiple-choice items is a difficult task, but it contributes greatly to the teaching and learning process for undergraduate, graduate, and professional-school courses.

Author: Thomas M. Haladyna, Arizona State University

Keywords: Multiple-choice items, selected response, test-item formats, examinations

This is a peer-reviewed article published in the journal of Studies in Educational Evaluation. Its focus is the accurate interpretation of student ratings data (including Penn State's SRTE) and appropriate use of the data to evaluate faculty. It includes recommendations for use and interpretation based on more than 80 years of student ratings research. Most colleges and universities use student ratings data to guide personnel decisions so it is critical that administrators and faculty evaluators have access to the cumulative knowledge about student ratings based on multiple studies, rather than single studies that have not been replicated, studies based on non-representative populations, or that are from a single discipline.

The article provides an overview of common views and misconceptions about student ratings, followed by clarification of what student ratings are and are not. It also includes two sets of guidelines for administrators and faculty serving on review committees.

Heavily abridged version of Weinstein, Y., Madan, C. R., & Smith, M. A. (in press). Teaching the science of learning. Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications, prepared for and presented at "Reframing Testing as a Learning Experience: Three Strategies for Use in the Classroom and at Home" on Tuesday, Oct. 3, 2017.

Six key learning strategies from research in cognitive psychology can be applied to education: spaced practice, interleaving, elaborative interrogation, concrete examples, dual coding, and retrieval practice. However, a recent report (Pomerance, Greenberg, & Walsh, 2016) found that few teacher-training textbooks cover these principles; current study-skills courses also lack coverage of these important learning strategies. Students are therefore missing out on mastering techniques they could use on their own to learn effectively. This handout contains the six key learning strategies to address those concerns.

Writing learning goals and explicit learning objectives will make it easier for students to understand what is expected of them in your course. Goals communicate what students will learn and objectives communicate the kind and quality of work you expect of them. Explicit objectives also make it easier for faculty to make decisions about course content, activities, assignments, and grading.

Instructional Foundations is a series of workshops for graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and instructors
from all disciplines who have never taught at the university level (grading experience OK) prior to Fall 2016. The
series is designed to provide people new to college teaching with knowledge, skills and confidence they can use in
their first teaching experience.

This paper outlines twelve tips for undertaking peer observation of teaching in medical education, using the peer review model and the experiences of the authors. An accurate understanding of teaching effectiveness is required by individuals, medical schools, and universities to evaluate the learning environment and to substantiate academic and institutional performance. Peer Observation of Teaching is one tool that provides rich, qualitative evidence for teachers, quite different from closed-ended student evaluations. When Peer Observation of Teaching is incorporated into university practice and culture, and is conducted in a mutually respectful and supportive way, it has the potential to facilitate reflective change and growth for teachers.

In this rationale, Natalie Parker, Director of CETL and Distance Education, Texas Wesleyan University, advocates for replacing high stakes exams with multiple-attempt, low-stakes quizzes. The “testing effect”, in which students recall more information about a topic after testing than after re-reading the material, was first reported by Abbott in 1909. Subsequent studies have confirmed that repeated testing is an effective way for students to recall material.

These PowerPoint slides accompanied a presentation by James M. Lang delivered at University Park on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. As faculty struggle with the problem of distracted students on our campuses and in our classes, they have become increasingly frustrated by the ways in which digital devices can interfere with student learning. But are students today more distracted than they were in the past? Has technology reduced their ability to focus and think deeply, as some popular books have argued? This interactive lecture draws upon scholarship from history, neuroscience, and education in order to provide productive new pathways for faculty to understand the distractible nature of the human brain, work with students to moderate the effects of distraction in their learning, and even leverage the distractible nature of our minds for new forms of connected and creative thinking.

This is the second report of the Committee on Assessing Teaching Effectiveness submitted to Kathy Bieschke, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs. This report is recommends options for improving future evaluation of teaching for tenure, promotion, annual review, and reappointment. The committee's recommendations address the unacceptable over-reliance on student feedback in the process of evaluation--specifically the numerical ratings of the Student Ratings of Teaching Effectiveness (SRTE) and the ‘Open Ended Item’ responses, which serve to amplify systemic inequities and hierarchies within our teaching community. The first report of the committee provided recommendations for evaluating teaching for promotion & tenure during the pandemic of 2020.

This is the committee's second report [for Report 1, see Appendix M in the NEW: 2020-2021 Administrative Guidelines for Policy AC23 (formerly HR23): Promotion and Tenure Procedures and Regulations]

This Classroom Assessment Technique (CAT) was developed by Stephen Brookfield, author of Becoming A Critically Reflective Teacher (San Francisco: Jossey Bass 1995). He refers to it as a “Critical Incident Questionnaire," but the questions can also be provided to students in advance to students as a way to jump-start conversations during office hours (remote & in-person).

Teaching and Advising Resources for the Inauguration and Beyond
This document offers resources for creating a positive learning environment for all students and addressing challenges that might arise at the beginning of this semester. Main topics include: Checking in with Ourselves and Our Students; Engaging in Dialogue with Students; Managing Classroom Disruptions

Best Practices in the Evaluation of Teaching, by Stephen L. Benton, The IDEA Center and Suzanne Young, University of Wyoming
Effective instructor evaluation is complex and requires the use of multiple measures—formal and informal, traditional and authentic—as part of a balanced evaluation system. The student voice, a critical element of that balanced system, is appropriately complemented by instructor self-assessment and the reasoned judgments of other relevant parties, such as peers and supervisors. Integrating all three elements allows instructors to take a mastery approach to formative evaluation, trying out new teaching strategies and remaining open to feedback that focuses on how they might improve. Such feedback is most useful when it occurs in an environment that fosters challenge, support, and growth. Rather than being demoralized by their performance rankings, faculty can concentrate on their individual efforts and compare current progress to past performance. They can then concentrate on developing better teaching methods and skills rather than fearing or resenting comparisons to others. The evaluation of teaching thus becomes a rewarding process, not a dreaded event.
Keywords: Evaluation of teaching, summative evaluation, formative evaluation, mastery orientation

This document was created to provide you with a source of options for gathering data on teamwork assignments and projects. You may choose to adopt one of the examples as is, combine elements from several of the examples, or use the examples to identify characteristics that correspond to particular aspects of your assigned work, course content, or student population.

This is a case study written to help faculty members think about and discuss issues related to students making inappropriate comments in class.

This diversity case study was designed to help faculty think about and discuss how best to address a classroom that includes students from diverse backgrounds. This document is most useful for faculty developers.

This document provides an example of a test blueprint, which can be used to help guide test development and ensure that the test questions appropriately reflect the learning objectives of the unit that the test is designed to assess. It can also help students when they study for the test.

Reference list for TAs: links to resources for undergraduates, including Counseling and Psychological Services and the Women's Resource Center

Best practices for teaching assistants as they interact with students. Includes tips on creating rapport and establishing effective boundaries.

Case study for classroom management

One-page handout of information about the Schreyer Institute and Student Ratings of Teaching Effectiveness (SRTE)

One page handout summarizing research literature on the correlation between student ratings and grades.

This is an example of a rubric that can be used to grade writing assignments. It can be adapted to specific writing assignments. The use of a rubric helps to make grading more accurate and consistent and helps students to create higher quality assignments.

This file contains a list of "item-writing rules," which will help you to write multiple choice questions in a way that will improve the ability of the test to focus on the content and prevent students from guessing the correct answer without knowing the material. The rules were developed by experts in the field of psychometrics, like the people who write questions for SATs or GREs.

This brief document addresses academic integrity by outlining which students cheat, why they cheat, how they cheat and how instructors can reduce cheating and plagiarism.

This document describes strategies students use to cheat and strategies faculty can use to minimize cheating.

This document outlines the research evidence for the impact of large classes on student learning.

This document provides methods for doing classroom assessment (usually ungraded) to help faculty keep students in large classes engaged and to provide feedback about student knowledge of specific concepts to both faculty and students.

This document describes strategies for encouraging and enabling students in large classes to participate in class.

This is a worksheet that includes the reasons why students might be misbehaving in large classes and strategies for addressing the incivility.

This handout highlights some of the current research based strategies for teaching millennial students.

This survey is used at Penn State Berks to assess student teachers. It includes questions that are completed by the administrator who supervises the student teacher. It is used for program assessment purposes.

This survey is used by the Penn State Berks teacher education program to assess student teachers for learning outcomes assessment (program assessment) purposes.

This essay, written by Penn State's Emeritus Professor of Chemistry, John Lowe, describes several useful strategies for collecting course-level assessment about students' study habits and learning, which can be used to improve student learning.

This document briefly describes what service-learning is and the ways in which it can promote student learning.

This excerpt from "Student Learning Assessment: Options and Resources" provides three sample rubric types including simple, detailed and holistic. These rubrics can help to improve the grading process. The publication was written by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.

2011 report on survey of student views on the quality of instruction at Penn State.

2011 report on survey of student views on the quality of instruction at Penn State

This report is the first in a series encompassed by the Quality of Instruction project. The research question guiding this report is: How do students and teachers view the instructional process at University Park? Information to address this question was obtained by surveying both students and faculty concerning their attitudes and experiences at University Park during the 1995-1996 academic year. These student and teacher surveys were made possible by support from the Penn State Alumni Association provided Fern (Bunny) Willits as the 1995-96 Alumni Teaching Fellow awardee and the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology. Class Attendance data were provided by the Office of Student Affairs Research and Assessment Pulse Survey.
The complete citation for the report is:
Willits, Fern K., Moore, Betty L., & Enerson, Diane M. (1997). Penn State, Quality of Instruction: Surveys of Students and Teachers at University Park. Pennsylvania State University.

The third in a series of reports dealing with the views of students and faculty about undergraduate
education at Penn State.

An eight question survey for students to assess how they prepared for a class and how they rate the difficulty of the exam.

An agenda and outline of a workshop topics on an academic resume, a teaching philosophy and an electronic teaching portfolio. This workshop is intended for graduate students who are teaching.

List the program outcomes that are addressed in a course and identify the specific student work in the course that can be used to document evidence of achievement for each relevant outcome.

Creating a Culture of Academic Integrity publication by Herteis. This document includes a definition of plagiarism, facts about the extent of cheating, why students cheat, and strategies for designing written assignments that reduce plagiarism (among other topics)

Brief discussion of characteristics that case-writers should aim for in order to promote students' learning. Traits discussed include realism, alignment with students' needs, complexity, adequate background information, and clear writing.

Brief (2-page) handout about strategies to promote effective student discussion.

Guidelines published by the Office of Student Conduct.

This file is a brief overview of how to develop a rubric, which can be useful for grading essays or other student projects. Rubrics make grading easier and more consistent as well as provide information to students that helps them do well on the assignment.

This document is a 1993 teaching newsletter from Stanford University that addresses the topic of classroom assessments - brief, typically non-graded assignments, that reveals to both teachers and students the extent to which students have the knowledge the teacher expects them to have.

This case study involves a female professor and her response to a female student who has been teased by males (who are the majority of the class). This document is most useful for faculty developers.

This case involves an elderly returning adult student who behaves in a way that makes the faculty member uncomfortable. This document is most useful for faculty developers.

This document provides a brief description of course goals and course objectives or course outcomes for student learning. Learning outcomes (or learning objectives) are useful to develop during course design, as well as when creating an assignment or activity.

There are 4 tips to help bolster grading efficiency and to deal with student grade complaints.

Common questions that applicants for faculty positions can expect to encounter.

This is a ready-to-use template for collecting mid-semester or end-of-course open-ended feedback from students.

Case study: A teaching assistant discovers that many of the class activities she planned will be physically impossible for one of her students.

This FAQ sheet offers many ideas and strategies for engaging students in active learning, given a large class environment.

This FAQ sheet offers many strategies for collecting student feedback in large classes.

This FAQ sheet discusses issues and strategies related to providing notes and supporting students' notetaking in large classes.

This FAQ sheet provides many suggestions for encouraging student participation in large classes.

This case study would be appropriate for use with faculty or graduate student instructors. It deals, in particular, with issues of inclusivity and students' inability to pay for required texts.

This is a true and false quiz to test assumptions about student ratings.

Three learning outcomes from Penn State Mont Alto along with suggestions on next steps are briefly described in this paper.

This case study is about how an instructor is presented a unique request from a transgender student. Several discussion questions are included.

This document is an example of a test blueprint (written for a research methods course), which can be created to help you match your test questions with your learning objectives *and* to help your students study for a test.

This PowerPoint, giving by Bill Welsh, provides suggestions for how faculty can accommodate students with disabilities in their classrooms.

Handout from Cindy Raynak's 2012 Teaching Professor presentation in Washington, DC. Describes the concept of "student-centered discussion," it's advantages for student learning, and how the process works.

PowerPoint presentation, authored by Cindy Raynak, that describes "student centered discussion."

This document provides examples of measures that are classified as direct or indirect evidence. It provides a list of appropriate direct or indirect measures of student learning which can be used in the process of program assessment.

This document describes how to use case studies as strategies to provide active learning experiences for students.

This document describes how concept maps can be used as active methods for students to learn course material.

This document describes an alternative method for assessment in which students work collaboratively on an exam.

This document describes strategies for using group quizzes to assess student knowledge.

This document describes the process of writing problems for use in helping students learn course material through problem-based learning.

This document describes a specific strategy that provides a collaborative learning experience for students.

This document describes several active learning methods for helping students learn how course concepts are organized.

This document describes several strategies that can be used to make concepts "concrete" and provide tactile material that can help students learn.

This document describes the use of student peers to provide feedback on written assignments by fellow students.

Student collaborative writing (peer writing) is a strategy in which students work together on all aspects of a writing project. It can reduce the need for the faculty member to spend time reading and commenting on drafts.

This activity involves students pairing up to answer questions about course content and can be used for review of material before a test, for example, or for practice.

This strategy involves posing relevant open-ended problems for students to discuss.

This document describes how to use role-playing exercises to help students grasp certain concepts.

Round Robin is a systematic technique that allows students to brainstorm answers to questions. It allows all students an opportunity to contribute.

A simulation provides a way for students to experience the content in action and spark discussion.

This strategy involves students working together in groups to research the solution to a problem.

This document describes how to facilitate discussions that are led by students in small groups.

This document describes a strategy for getting students involved with the content by having them pair with other students to discuss the answer to an instructor-posed problem. The pairs then share their answers with the class.

This document describes a strategy to help students get more involved in lectures by periodically posing an question and having them discuss with a neighboring classmate.

Drawing upon data from surveys of students and instructors at the 19 Commonwealth Campuses during 2012, this report addresses the following research questions:

• What are the instructional elements that Commonwealth Campus students and teachers view as important for quality teaching?
• How frequently are these elements realized in the teaching that actually occurs?
• How favorably do Commonwealth Campus students rate the overall quality of the instruction they receive?
• What factors relate to differences in how students' perceive instructional quality?
• Do the perceptions of undergraduate students at the Commonwealth Campuses concerning the quality of instruction differ from those at University Park?
• How, if at all, have the perceptions concerning instructional quality changed across time?

Drawing upon new data obtained from surveys of students and instructors at the University Park Campus of Penn State carried out in 2011, this report addresses the following research questions:

• What are the elements that students and instructors believe are most important to achieving quality teaching?
• How frequently do these occur in University Park classrooms today?
• How do University Park students rate the quality of the instruction they receive?
• What factors influence students’ ratings of teaching quality in a course?
• How have the perceptions of students and instructors changed since the 1996 survey?