The Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL) aims to develop and promote teaching evaluation strategies in order to provide high-quality teaching and learning opportunities at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

As part of this, we seek to provide courses that are responsive to 'consumer' needs and demands, and develop performance indicators for teaching and learning.

CATL staff assist staff in seeking and using feedback on teaching from students and peers, and in catering to individual needs of research students. Guidance in preparing academic portfolios for self-reflection and for application for academic promotion or tenure is available.

There are some key concepts, ideas and strategies that are important in university teaching, but there are no set recipes for effective teaching – each teacher, each student, and each week of semester will be different. No one strategy that you learn will carry you through every teaching situation you are likely to face, or that’s relevant in every context.

Understanding some general principles will equip you to tailor your teaching to the contexts and situations in which you teach.

The aim of this section is to offer ways in which tutors and lecturers can engage in the classroom to obtain useful information to improve the teaching and learning experience.

Teaching instruments

The University provides the following evaluation of teaching instruments:

• Student Perceptions of Teaching (SPOT). Teaching evaluation through SPOT surveys is voluntary and survey results are confidential – they are provided only to the staff member whose teaching was evaluated.
• Students' Unit Reflective Feedback (SURF). SURF is a survey instrument developed at UWA for students to evaluate their units.
• Student Perceptions of Research Supervision (SPORS). The primary objective of this project is to facilitate discussion between supervisors and their students.
• On Supervision Candidature And Resarch (OSCAR). The OSCAR survey allows students to provide feedback about their postgraduate research experience over the past 12 months.

• Peer review of teaching at UWA. The principal purpose of peer review is to encourage reflection and the development of practice, skills and an understanding of teaching and learning.
• Alternative ways of gathering student evaluations of teaching. Staff are encouraged to obtain information on their teaching in addition to the UWA endorsed methods of SPOT and SURF.

Resources

CATL provides resources around evaluations of teaching:

• Resources for improving teaching relating to SPOT standard items
• Providing feedback to survey participants
• A tertiary practitioner's guide to collecting evidence of learner benefit. This resource is from Ako Aotearoa, The National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence in New Zealand.
• Student evaluation of teaching workshop
• Peer review of teaching workshop