Student Assessment of Instruction (SAI)

Teaching is imperative to the mission of the University of West Florida (UWF) and, thus, its effectiveness must be assessed. The purpose of the Student Assessment of Instruction evaluation process is to provide individual faculty, chairs, and deans with specific information to enhance instruction and faculty development.

The SAI rating system permits student to confidentially rate their learning experience at UWF. Students are encouraged to provide feedback about their courses and instructor. Approximately six weeks after grades are submitted, summaries are provided to faculty and administrators in order for the instructor to improve their courses and teaching methods.

Teaching Partners Program

The Teaching Partners program promotes the exchange of effective and innovative teaching strategies. Teaching Partners was initiated by the College of Arts and Sciences and is now available to all faculty at UWF.

The Teaching Partners program is designed to:

• Encourage the development and exchange of successful and novel teaching practices at UWF
• Fulfill UWF's strategic priority of inspiring and achieving the highest levels of student learning, creativity, and success that encourages the development of individual potential in students, faculty, and staff
• Facilitate peer reviews of teaching
• Supplement departmental mentoring programs
• Provide a mechanism for creating a teaching mentor component for faculty who wish to develop a mutual mentoring team

Turnitin

The University of West Florida (UWF) maintains a license agreement with iParadigms, LLC for the purpose of using their product Turnitin, an online text matching service. The Turnitin service has the potential to be an important resource for promoting information literacy as well as encouraging academic integrity. All UWF faculty have access to the Turnitin service, and each faculty member can also make the service available to students in his or her classes. Because the Turnitin service has implications for copyright of student work, privacy of student academic records covered by FERPA, and other related issues, it is critical that all university faculty, instructors, and teaching assistants use Turnitin appropriately.

 

 

8/9/12 cdw