TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY

TEACHING ACADEMY

PROTOCOL FOR DEVELOPING A RECOMMENDATION

FOR THE DEPARTMENTAL EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING AWARD

1) Unless changes are specified by the Executive Council (this must be monitored by the chair of the award committee prior to February 1st of each year), the information and format posted on the Teaching Academy website shall be considered as the operating procedure upon which a determination of the recipient of the award shall be based.

2) Upon receipt of the dossiers from the Provost's Office, the chair of the committee or the secretary of the Teaching Academy shall determine that each dossier meets the eligibility and criteria for review as stated on the website. Dossiers that do not meet the review criteria shall be called to the attention of the chair of the Teaching Academy Executive Council and the chair of the award committee for possible discussion with the Provost's Office.

3) A meeting of the Departmental Excellence in Teaching Award Committee shall be called within ten (10) working days of the receipt of the dossiers or within the timeframe for notification required by the Provost's Office (whichever comes first).

4) During the interim, the committee members shallreview the files independently in advance of the meeting. Each member shalluse the rating form to assign provisional numerical scoresto rank the applications according to the following criteria: a) demonstration of efforts made to improve teaching within the unit, b) promotion of student engagement through service learning, community involvement, study abroad, internships and undergraduate research, c) contribution to and impact on the scholarship of teaching and/or learning, d) demonstration of the application of a variety of teaching methods and interdisciplinary collaborations in teaching, e) demonstration of program(s) quality and mechanisms for assessment, and f) strength of plan for use of award money.

5) All members of the DETA committee must review and rank all applications, even if they are a member of the department, program or unit submitting the application. To counteract any perception of conflict of interest we have instituted “Olympic scoring” in which each committee member reviews and ranks all proposals (regardless of whether they know the authors). The DETA chair then totals the ranks, but drops the single highest and single lowest scores for each application (Dugger, 1997; Geringer, Allen, MacLeod & Scott, 2009; Perkins & Allen, 1991). The remaining scores are then added and re-ranked. This procedure prevents a reviewer from elevating his/her own proposal and also prevents a reviewer from strategically devaluing a competitive proposal.

6) General discussion ensues, including reasons for votes, comparisons, explanations of how certain departments work by those who have special expertise or insight, etc. In light of this discussion, committee members should feel free to revise their numerical rankings. It should also be discussed at this point whether the committee prefers to give – or withhold – the award in the current cycle.

7) Revised ranking sheets shall be collected from committee members in attendance. The results shall be tabulated using the process outlined in item 5 above. The unit with the highest rank shall be the DETA recipient.

8) Immediately after the meeting, the name of the department or unit considered to be the recommendation of the Committee shall be reported to the Chair of Executive Council of the Teaching Academy by the chair of the DETA committee for transmission to the Office of the Provost.

9) Point of clarification. The term "Department" may signify a department, unit, college, or recognized area on campus.

References:

Dugger, R. (1997). Inter-judge reliability for the 1994 Oklahoma all-state band auditions based on an Olympic style judging system. Journal of Band Research, 32(2), 66-75.

Geringer, J.M., Allen, M.L., MacLeod, R.B. & Scott, L. (2009). Using a prescreening rubric for all-state violin selection: Influences of performance and teaching experience.Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 28, 41-46.

Perkins, D. W., & Allen, M. L. (1991). An investigation of inter- judge reliability of the Texas MusicEducators Association all-state orchestra string auditions. Texas Music Education Research,21-23. Retrieved from