Student Evaluation of Teaching

For each course at Wayne State University (WSU), students have the opportunity to provide feedback on their experiences.  The Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) is used for promotion and tenure decisions at WSU.  It's administered by the Office of Testing, Evaluation, and Research Services, not the Office for Teaching and Learning (OTL).  However, the OTL provides confidential, developmental consultations on making the best use of your SET results to improve teaching.  We can help you aggregate multiple semesters of SET data, look for themes in the responses, and strategize ways to implement the feedback.  For specific questions on how to access your SETs or the process, contact the Office of Testing, Evaluation, and Research Services.

Do you want to ensure you get the most out of your SET?  Before you administer the SET in your courses, see the OTL's Advice for Administering SETs.

Once you receive your results, the OTL has Advice for Using SET Results.

Teaching Portfolios for Promotion & Tenure

Teaching portfolios are required as part of the evaluation for tenure and/or promotion at WSU, and they can also benefit instructors preparing for annual reviews and/or seeking contract renewal.  The portfolio may include peer reviews, innovations and instructional techniques such as syllabi and methods of learning assessment, student research, publications, and professional achievements.  WSU has university-wide guidelines for this, and there may be additional considerations within your school/college.  More information about promotion and tenure procedures, including the teaching portfolio, can be found on the Office of the Provost website.

The OTL offers instructors support, including workshops and individual consultations, in documenting their teaching development efforts and in developing and updating their teaching portfolios.  We can also help instructors with writing a philosophy of teaching statement to include in their teaching portfolios.

Feedback provided by students may be useful for making improvement to your courses, but it's important to recognize that SET results and Mid-semester Assessment Program (MAP) feedback measure students' perceptions of the climate for learning; they don't measure student learning gains.  These are just one point of assessment on your teaching.  Feedback gathered from the MAP and SET are often most helpful when they are used in combination and longitudinally.  We really want a number of data points over the semester and across semesters.