About teaching evaluation at the Faculty of Health Sciences

The Faculty of Health Sciences aims to deliver the best possible teaching, which both students and lecturers experience as stimulating and relevant. This requires ongoing evaluation, adjustment and development of teaching.

A key principle is that it is the teaching and not the lecturer that is evaluated. The focus is on how teaching and learning activities are designed, and on students’ engagement and learning from these activities.

The Faculty of Health Sciences’ concept for teaching evaluations consists of four main components:

• Systematic written evaluation and self-evaluation
• The lecturer’s feedback on the delivery of the course
• Key figures/examination statistics
• Dialogue-based teaching evaluation and alignment of expectations

Teaching evaluation at the Faculty of Health Sciences should:

• focus on both the development of teaching and pedagogical approaches
• ensure a systematic, trust-based approach to working continuously with the quality of teaching
• enable systematic monitoring of both students’ and lecturers’ experiences in relation to the delivery of teaching
• give lecturers, course leaders and study boards greater freedom to evaluate teaching and follow up on it
• increase engagement and counter evaluation fatigue among both students and staff
• create greater focus on what works well in teaching, rather than on ‘fault-finding’
• show the link between initiatives, development and outcomes
• meet the requirements and standards set nationally and locally at SDU
• be practical and easy to administer

The overall evaluation effort is primarily dialogue-based and supported by quantitative data – mainly for use by the lecturer/course leader and for management information purposes.

The dialogue-based teaching evaluation is central and is conducted formatively rather than summatively, with a view to enabling ongoing adjustments and, where necessary, changes of direction, and to ensuring a focus on teaching and learning activities – not merely on examination performance.

The written final evaluation is conducted summatively and is based on a number of standardised evaluation questions as well as three optional programme-specific questions, with a view to systematically supporting the development of teaching and the planning of pedagogical initiatives.

The mandatory questions focus on students’ self-evaluation as well as on the delivery of teaching and course administration.

The optional questions may be used to evaluate specific initiatives and local development areas within the individual programme.