Holistic Evaluation of Teaching at UCLA

If you’re a faculty member in a department that’s using HET and you’d like to chat with a HET facilitator (e.g., to begin putting together HET materials for a review, to look over your completed HET materials before a review, to discuss how you might use HET to improve / innovate in your teaching), click here to request a 30- or 60-minute meeting. You can expect a response within three business days.

Introduction People Background Participating Departments Framework Overview Dimensions Evidence Evaluation Lenses

Image of White Board with the words Holistic Evaluation of Teaching

Introduction to the Project

In 2021, UCLA’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching initiated a new project to help departments improve the way they evaluate teaching. The motivation for this project is simple: to improve student learning and students’ academic experience by helping faculty implement excellent teaching practices. Across our campus, there is widespread recognition that excellent teaching is too multifaceted and nuanced to be documented using a single source of evidence like student surveys. Thus, we developed a framework that we refer to as Holistic Evaluation of Teaching or HET: a way to think about and document teaching that includes self-reflection, student input, and peer review. Importantly, this new approach emphasizes faculty professional development and efforts to improve teaching. It is adaptable to the particular teaching challenges and cultures of each unit across campus, and it has been developed with broad input from faculty, the Senate, and academic leadership.

Glory Tobiason (HET Co-Lead), engaged discussion with the working group from the Life Sciences Core Education Department Working in tandem with the HET initiative, the Center for Educational Assessment is revising the end-of-quarter surveys that students complete for each class. Students using the new surveys are asked about their experience of evidence-based instructional practices, and they are encouraged to share feedback that instructors can use to improve the course. These revisions aim, among other things, to make these surveys a more robust form of evidence that can be used within the larger framework of HET.

Left: Glory Tobiason (HET Co-Lead), engaged in discussion with the working group from the Life Sciences Core Education Department

HET in Departments

We began working with our first cohort of departments in AY 22-23, and new cohorts join each year. Participating departments are listed here. Each department determines an appropriate process and timeline for adapting the HET framework, building consensus with department colleagues, and beginning to use HET. The steps below are common.

During the first year of engagement with HET, a faculty working group from each department meets regularly with a HET facilitator to tailor the HET approach, making sure it reflects the priorities and disciplinary context of their department.
In the second year, the department begins to use the adapted framework in a way they decide makes sense (e.g., to help structure teaching evaluation for a small number of faculty, to structure formative peer review or mentoring, on a voluntary basis, etc.). The department continues to receive support from a HET facilitator (e.g., implementing further modifications to materials based on faculty feedback, developing workshops for faculty to learn about HET, etc.).
During and beyond the third year of HET engagement, we encourage departments to think of how more or most faculty in the department can begin to use the HET materials and process in teaching evaluation.

Adrienne Lavine (Special Assistant to the VPTL for the HET Initiative), engaged discussion with the working group from the Life Sciences Core Education Department

Adrienne Lavine (Special Assistant to the VPTL for the HET Initiative), engaged in discussion with the working group from the Life Sciences Core Education Department

HET and Unit 18 Lecturers

A primary aim of the HET initiative is to ensure that excellent instructors are recognized and rewarded for their dedication and expertise. The initiative articulates pedagogical principles and a way to think about evaluation that are grounded in research and designed to be useful to all instructors in higher education, regardless of the nature of their academic appointment. Lecturers engage with HET in unique ways. Unit 18 Lecturers may opt, voluntarily, to engage in their department’s HET process as a way to reflect on their teaching, a “Holistic Examination of Teaching,” as it were. And they may opt, voluntarily, to include HET materials in their evaluation dossier and/or use HET materials as the basis for their evaluation. However, it is critical that departments engaged in the HET initiative remember: the process for evaluating the teaching of Unit 18 Lecturers must be consistent with the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiated between the UC-AFT and the University of California. Lecturers are under no obligation to participate in their department’s version of HET, and evaluators must not disadvantage Lecturers who choose not to engage.

HET FAQs

It seems like HET is designed to evaluate both (i) the instructor of a huge, undergraduate chemistry course and (ii) the instructor of a small graduate seminar in literary analysis. How is that possible, given that teaching looks so different in the two contexts?

There are two answers to this question. First, in departments that decide to use HET, faculty spend a lot of time tailoring the “off-the-shelf” HET resources to fit their disciplinary context. So, HET tools in Nursing might refer to students’ clinical skills, HET tools in Engineering might refer to problem sets or design projects, and HET tools in English might refer to essays or term papers. Second, the HET tools do not prescribe a single, lockstep way to teach. Instead, they help instructors and evaluators focus on general principles of good pedagogy, like the idea that students benefit from feedback about their learning as that learning is underway. For example, we would discourage a department from using an evaluation criterion like, “instructor grades and returns student work within a week and with at least three comments per student.” A more useful criterion could be, “instructor provides regular and timely feedback on student work,” along with the opportunity for the instructor to explain what this criterion looks like in their teaching practice.

What about cherry-picking evidence in HET or misrepresenting one’s teaching in a self-statement?

In HET, as in most teaching evaluation systems in higher education, an instructor might present a student assignment that is carefully scaffolded and aligned to learning objectives, has a detailed grading rubric, and incorporates student choice… but this might be atypical in their teaching practice. Or an instructor might write in their statement, “I use a range of strategies to promote equitable airtime among students” when, in fact, a few talkative students dominate every class session.

HET is grounded in the idea that principles of sound pedagogy play out differently in different contexts. An evaluator might have their own idea of what it looks like to “incorporate student choice” into a course, but the instructor they’re reviewing might use different strategies. One way that HET prioritizes the instructor’s autonomy and unique pedagogical identity is by soliciting self-reported data. The limitations of these data are precisely what the question above names: the risk of cherry-picking and misrepresentation. This tension (between the value of hearing directly from an instructor and the risk of misleading data) is not unique to HET. It’s a tension that’s inherent in any evaluation system that includes self-reported data, a tension HET does not claim to have resolved.

What if there’s a colleague on the departmental teaching-review committee who has a tense relationship with the candidate they’re reviewing, and because of that tension, they review and interpret HET materials with a negative bias?

Job performance in higher education is evaluated through peer review, and a clear limitation of this approach is the potential for preexisting interpersonal relationships to color evaluator judgments. HET does not eliminate this concern, but it does aim to mitigate it. HET provides an explicit structure and process for evaluation, one familiar to both the instructor and evaluator. In simplest terms, evaluators are tasked to look for evidence of teaching practices X, Y, and Z… criteria of which instructors are aware as they prepare their materials. The idea is that this precision and transparency reduces opportunities to make vague, unfairly negative assessments (or positive ones, sometimes referred to as “departmental love letters” about teaching).

Does HET require a lot of extra work compared to what my department has done in the past to evaluate teaching?

Whether HET is more work than what a department has done in the past depends on two factors: what the department has been doing to evaluate teaching and what the department’s version of HET looks like. Consider a hypothetical department that previously required a lengthy teaching statement and a classroom observation by a colleague as part of teaching evaluation. If this department adopted a streamlined version of HET (e.g., without these requirements and with simple rubrics), teaching evaluation might take less time. Alternatively, a department that previously evaluated teaching primarily by considering student evaluations of teaching might adopt a version of HET that asks instructors to provide more and richer evidence of their teaching. This will likely require more work the first time an instructor uses HET (the work should decrease in subsequent HET reviews).

As departments adapt the HET materials and process to fit their needs, one of their central tasks is to balance the desire for fairer, more substantive evaluation that supports instructors in improving against the time this requires. Each department determines the best balance for their context.

What is the relationship between student evaluations of teaching and HET?

One thing the word “Holistic” is meant to convey in “Holistic Evaluation of Teaching” is that different perspectives on an instructor’s teaching are important, including those of the instructor, their peers, and students. This means that student evaluations are part of the evidence an instructor may use to showcase their teaching in HET—but they’re not the only evidence. Put differently, HET encourages evaluators to consider a “basket of evidence” that contains more than just student evaluations.

Does HET require observation of my teaching?

No. The UCLA campus requires peer evaluation, but not necessarily peer observation. Peer evaluation might take the form of peers reviewing an instructor’s teaching materials, for example. Departments that adapt and use a version of HET decide whether to require peer observation as part of teaching evaluation.

Timeline

← Ongoing consultation with the Senate and academic leadership →

Stage 1

F 2021-W 2022

Groundwork

Understand HET research base, HET efforts at other universities

Convene HET advisory, steering committees

Stage 2

W-Sp 2022

Needs Assessment, Initial Design

Interviews with 30 UCLA stakeholders

Input from advisory and steering committees

Design framework

Stage 3

Sp-Su 2022

Revise Framework, Preparation for Pilot

Revise framework based on feedback from campus leaders

Design departmental adaptation process, identify collaborating departments

Stage 4

F 2022-Sp 2024

Implementation Pilot

HET adaptation and adoption in select departments

Stage 5

F 2024-Sp 2026

Implementation Scale-Up

Wider HET adaptation and adoption across campus

Project Team

Glory Tobiason, Program Director, Holistic Evaluation of Teaching (HET) Initiative

Dr. Glory Tobiason is a lecturer in Education; an affiliated scholar at the National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST); and the Program Director for the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching Initiative. She has a background in formative assessment, standards-based instructional design, and teacher quality. She also developed UCLA’s Peer-Assisted Reflections on Student Learning (PAROSL) program.

Adrienne Lavine, Special Assistant to the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning for the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching (HET) Initiative

Adrienne Lavine is the Special Assistant to the Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning for the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching Initiative and a faculty member in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. She was the Associate Vice Provost, Center for the Advancement of Teaching from July 1, 2017 to September 30, 2022. She has served as chair of the Academic Senate and as chair of her department. She was the Director of Education and Outreach for the NSF-sponsored Center for Scalable and Integrated Nano-Manufacturing and directed the Clare Boothe Luce Undergraduate Scholars Program. She was awarded the Henry and Susan Samueli Teaching Award in her department and is the co-author of an internationally respected heat transfer textbook.

Valeria Dominguez, Postdoctoral Research and Support Scholar for the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching (HET) Initiative

Dr. Valeria Dominguez is a postdoctoral scholar with the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching Initiative. Influenced by her identity as a first-generation Latina immigrant, Valeria’s teaching, advocacy, and scholarship focus on the intersection of equity and social justice. She has over ten years of experience serving, researching, and teaching at the University of California.

Marjorie Llanera, Program Analyst

Marjorie Llanera is a Program Analyst at the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC). She provides project management and administrative support to the Holistic Evaluation of Teaching Initiative.

Marc Levis-Fitzgerald, Liaison to HET

Dr. Marc Levis-Fitzgerald is the Director for Assessment of Student & Instructor Experience at the Teaching and Learning Center (TLC). His research interests include curriculum reform and evaluation, student and faculty development, and institutional transformation. He is particularly interested in documenting the experience of undergraduate students, and he directs the development and implementation of the UCLA Senior Survey. He heads several undergraduate science initiative assessment projects funded by NSF and HHMI. In addition, he leads program review efforts related to the Transfer Alliance Program, a partnership between UCLA and community colleges in California.

Because of the importance of this project, the TLC is devoting significant resources of its staff. To date, the following individuals have contributed to the project: Michelle Chen, Anita Han, Molly Jacobs, Amy Liu, Casey Shapiro, Erin Sparck, Lucia Tabarez, and Brit Toven-Lindsey.

Advisory Committee Members

Paul Barber, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Elizabeth Bjork, Psychology

Jessica Collett, Sociology

Al Courey, Chemistry and Biochemistry

David MacFadyen, Comparative Literature

Victoria Marks, World Arts and Cultures / Dance

Jose-Felipe Martinez, Education

Kathryn Morgan, Classics

Christopher Mott, English

Steering Committee Members

Lisa Felipe, Excellence in Pedagogy and Innovative Classrooms

Rachel Kennison, Center for Education Innovation and Learning in the Sciences

Tami Kremer-Sadlik, Social Science IDP

Shanna Shaked, Center for Education Innovation and Learning in the Sciences

Sirui Wang, UCLA Online Teaching and Learning

Juliet Williams, Social Science IDP

Motivation and Context for HET

The HET initiative is part of an effort to establish a culture in which faculty continually examine their pedagogy and strive to innovate and improve… towards the goal of enabling all students — across the diversity of their backgrounds, levels of preparation, and access points (freshman vs. transfer entry) — to learn.

The academic personnel reward structure must align with the goal of teaching excellence, so that faculty see that their efforts are both appreciated and rewarded. Here, CAP currently faces a challenge with lack of robust evidence for the quality of teaching. CAP members have noted that peer evaluations and letters from students are almost uniformly positive and therefore not helpful. Student evaluations are the only metric that displays a range of opinions. Unfortunately, while there is value in getting input from students, research shows that students are not the best judge of their own learning and that student evaluations are subject to bias based on gender, ethnicity, and other factors.

Because evaluation of teaching is associated with the high-stakes decisions of merits and promotions, it is not surprising that individuals and departments tend to speak in glowing terms about the candidate’s teaching, without serious attention to solving problems that may exist. We believe it is preferable to take a developmental approach in which the candidate is rewarded for professional development and efforts to improve teaching—particularly efforts that research suggests can enhance student learning.

This is consistent with CAP’s Teaching page, which states that “The articulation of a candidate’s pedagogical approach, the description of new teaching techniques tried out and their results, the efforts to constructively and imaginatively address problematic issues cited by students, all testify to the candidate’s engagement in the educational mission.”

Insights, Support, and Guidance from the UCLA Community

Those developing Holistic Evaluation of Teaching initiatives at other universities have made it clear: the work must be grounded in the priorities and perspectives of the campus community. For this reason, an initial phase of our work was to conduct interviews with about thirty faculty across campus, including several current and past chairs and deans. These individuals represent a range of disciplines, career stages, and racial/ethnic backgrounds. What we learned from these interviews is at the heart of the HET framework.

We are grateful to have incorporated insights from Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Michael Levine, now Vice Chancellor, Academic Personnel, who says of the project: “I believe this is a useful approach to the evaluation of teaching, especially in terms of providing information about pedagogical improvement.” Additionally, we are grateful for the insights of former Interim Vice Provost, Academic Personnel Kathleen Komar and members of the Academic Senate’s Council on Academic Personnel and Committee on Teaching. Our work is also informed by insights from our Advisory Committee (faculty from across campus), our Steering Committee (leaders from other campus teaching-and-learning centers), the experience of other UC campuses, and our engagement with the Bay View Alliance and their TEval project. We are grateful for the generous financial support and institutional endorsement of many campus leaders, including Miguel García-Garibay, Darnell Hunt, Tracy Johnson, David Schaberg, Alexandra Stern, Eileen Strempel, and Abel Valenzuela Jr.

	Engaging in initial HET adaptation work	Completed initial HET adaptation work	Presented initial adapted version of HET to faculty	Adopting HET for either voluntary or required use	Implementing HET: use by some faculty in personnel review	Implementing HET: use by most faculty in personnel review
Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences
Ecology & Evolutionary Biology
Life Sciences Core Education
Linguistics
Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology
Nursing
Sociology
Writing Programs

Cohort 1

The departments below began working on their version of HET and exploring its suitability in AY 22-23.

Life Sciences Core Education

Beth Lazazzera (department chair): “This initiative to adopt a more holistic method to evaluate teaching by faculty is desperately needed and will help create a system that can reward faculty contributions to teaching. As the LS Core Education Department has a large group of outstanding educators, we felt we could help this process become more widespread by being involved early in the HET initiative.”

Working Group:

Deb Pires

Jukka Keranen

Rana Khankan

Jay Phelan

Linguistics

Megha Sundara (department chair): “We joined the HET initiative to make teaching evaluations in Linguistics transparent and consistent. Through these discussions we hope to articulate a shared understanding of departmental expectations about teaching, and additionally, to inform ourselves about best practices for both teaching evaluation and teaching effectiveness.”

Working Group:

Dylan Bumford

Jesse Harris

Stefan Keine

Megha Sundara

Kie Zuraw

Nursing

Lauren Clark (Associate Dean of Academic Programs): “In nursing, we know that one kind of evaluation doesn’t tell the full story about teaching effectiveness. We have big classes, small classes, clinical, and lecture classes. Developing holistic evaluation methods lets us appraise our teaching performance more fully and fairly.”

Working Group:

Theresa Brown

MarySue Heilemann

Charlene Niemi

Dorothy Wiley

Sociology

Abigail Saguy (department chair): “As a department that prizes teaching excellence, we welcome the opportunity to customize new ways of assessing effective teaching that go beyond student reviews and encourage self-reflection.”

Working Group:

Jessica Collett

Chris Herring

Megan Sweeney

Stefan Timmermans

Cohort 2

The departments below began working on their version of HET and exploring its suitability in AY 23-24.

Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences

Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni (department chair): “We decided to explore the adoption of the HET framework after an excellent and well-received presentation at a faculty meeting. It became clear quickly during my tenure as chair that relying on anonymous student evaluations, even when coupled with peer teaching evaluations, to evaluate teaching quality and most importantly student learning was inadequate. The comprehensive framework of HET will allow us to take our educational mission to be on par with our research excellence.”

Working Group:

Jon Aurnou

Pedro Monarrez

Edwin Schauble

Caroline Beghein

Ecology & Evolutionary Biology

Michael Alfaro (department chair): “EEB’s decision to engage with HET reflects our desire to adopt evidence-based practices in our pedagogy as we pursue our mission of inclusive excellence in teaching. We believe that the HET framework will lead to more transparent and effective assessment of our teaching; recognize, incentivize, and reward instructional innovation; promote greater equity and inclusivity within the classroom; and reinforce the value EEB places on teaching.”

Working Group:

Paul Barber

Leryn Gorlitsky

Tonya Kane

Peter Nonacs

Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology

Jeff Long (department chair): “Excellence in teaching has always been an important aspect of the Molecular, Cell, and Developmental Biology Department. However, it has been difficult to adequately evaluate our strengths and weaknesses relying solely on student and peer evaluations. The HET program offers us comprehensive feedback on our teaching efforts in order to improve our classes, as well as provide us with unbiased evaluations to be used in academic promotion actions.”

Working Group:

Siobhan Braybrook

Hilary Coller

Andrew Goldstein

Pavak Shah

Writing Programs

Christine Holten (director): “Writing Programs is lucky to enjoy a vibrant teaching culture. HET gives us the opportunity to build on this, developing transparent criteria for assessing the hard work of our lecturers and ways for encouraging sustained self-reflection and improvement.”

Working Group:

Liz Galvin Lew

Mia McIver

Mary Samuelson

Laurel Westrup

Circle with three sections with the names of the three elements of HET in each section: "Dimensions of Excellent Teaching," "Sources of Evidence," and "Evaluation Lenses."

HET Framework

HET is organized into a 3-part framework, which includes dimensions of excellent teaching, sources of evidence, and evaluation lenses. Based on research, examples of other universities, and feedback from UCLA stakeholders, we have designed “off-the-shelf” versions of each of these three elements. These are versions that reflect discipline-agnostic principles about how people learn and common features of student-centered, inclusive pedagogy. (These are described in detail in this document.)

But of course, disciplines and departments have their own pedagogical practices, priorities, cultures, etc. To reflect those, departments that implement HET may choose to adjust the off-the-shelf versions of the three elements.

Conducting A Review Using the HET Framework

Using provided HET guidance and examples, instructors write their teaching statement and assemble their HET Folder. Evaluators review these materials, interpret them, and make a judgment about the instructor’s teaching, using the provided HET rubric(s). They describe their judgment in a departmental letter that becomes part of the case. Evaluators may also provide private, no-stakes feedback to the instructor to help them reflect on and improve their teaching.

Dimensions of Excellent Teaching in HET

In the HET framework, excellent teaching is understood to comprise four principles. Excellent teaching (i) engages students, (ii) is equitable, (iii) is learning centered and responsive, and (iv) involves striving to improve.

Engaging Students

stick figure next to open door

DEFINITION. Teachers engage students by creating courses and lessons that are inviting, coherent, and clearly organized. They interact with students and support their learning beyond the delivery of lectures. Courses and lessons include appropriate content, reflect scholarship about how people learn, and are designed to engage students as active participants.

This includes the following components:

Being appropriately available to students and communicating respectfully and promptly;
Communicating (e.g., in syllabus, course website) student responsibilities, grading conventions, and course logistics (e.g., where to find materials, how to communicate with the instructor) in an accessible, clear, and explicit way; and
Selecting appropriate course content and designing activities that reflect scholarship about how people learn: actively; with frequent opportunities to practice and apply; and with appropriate challenge, scaffolding, and support.

Equitable

DEFINITION. Equitable teaching means designing instruction, interacting with students, and maintaining learning environments in ways that enable all students to learn. Instructors convey that all students are capable scholars and valued members of an academic community and acknowledge differences as contributions to the learning community.

This includes the following components:

Designing learning activities to be accessible for all students, including creating and maintaining structures that allow all students to contribute;
Incorporating student voice and choice into learning activities;
Modeling a commitment to inclusive teaching in decisions, comments, and behaviors; and
Ensuring that course content reflects diversity and surfaces issues of equity and social justice that are relevant to the discipline.

Learning Centered and Responsive

stick figure with two gears above head

DEFINITION. Learning-centered and responsive teaching means instructors design lessons and courses starting with what they intend students to learn, rather than which content they will present. Assessment makes gaps between students’ current and intended learning visible; after formative assessment, feedback and subsequent instruction narrow those gaps. Instructors regularly refine teaching materials based on what they observe about student learning and feedback from students.

This includes the following components:

Making the intended learning for courses and lessons explicit and aligning materials, activities, and assessments to that intended learning;
Conducting frequent, low-stakes, formative assessment to make student thinking visible and adjusting subsequent instruction and giving students feedback in response;
Designing synchronous lessons with enough flexibility and student participation that decisions and adaptations can be made in real time, in response to how learning is unfolding in a particular lesson, for particular students; and
Asking students and observing how syllabi, assignments, activities, assessments, readings, etc. support learning, and then refining these materials.

Striving to Improve

stick figure holding briefcase walking up stairs

DEFINITION. Teachers who strive to improve recognize that teaching expertise is not static, and it is always possible to learn more about teaching. Over time, there are shifts in student demographics, background learning, and interests; the social context in which we teach; what we know about how people learn; and disciplinary content (in some fields). Excellent teachers keep an eye out for ways their pedagogy may also need to shift, and they support colleagues to do the same.

This includes the following components:

Reflecting on the success of current teaching strategies and adjusting them to better serve students;
Participating in ongoing professional development;
Observing or being observed by a colleague in order to give or get feedback about teaching; and
Contributing to conversations about and efforts to improve teaching and learning in the department, on campus, and beyond.

For an instructor who’s considering how to provide evidence of each dimension of excellent teaching, examples of evidence can be found at the Evidence tab.

Sources of Evidence in HET

Teaching Statement

Instructors write a teaching statement (which can be part of their standard self-evaluation) in which they give examples of their teaching in each dimension. They may also choose to provide additional context (e.g., reflect overall on their teaching, discuss their teaching philosophy, provide a brief, self-evaluative narrative). The HET framework provides guidance and structure to assist faculty with creating a more substantive teaching statement.

HET Folder

Two forms of evidence are typically used in evaluation cases at UCLA: the Teaching Record (a form that summarizes courses developed and taught) and Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs). An additional source of evidence is required (APM 210), and several options are listed below under Categories of Evidence. In addition, concrete examples are provided further below, keyed to the dimensions of excellent teaching.

These should be thought of as suggestions to spark inspiration, not requirements. The intention is not that most (or even many) of these should be in every instructor’s HET Folder. What makes a strong HET Folder is the inclusion of evidence that illustrates what the instructor wants the evaluators to consider.

Categories of Evidence

Evidence from Students Beyond SETs

Evidence from students beyond SETs might include:

Anonymized examples of student work* (annotated, so evaluators understand the relevance);
Instructor-gathered feedback from students about the course* (e.g., results of a mid-quarter survey about how the course is working for students; summary of a class activity in which students gave feedback about the course); or
Data demonstrating student achievement (e.g., exam or assignment grades; summaries of performance on different dimensions of a grading rubric) or engagement (e.g., record of participation).
Student performance on assessments (e.g., pre- and post-quarter tests, discipline-specific licensure or accreditation exams, etc.).
Student grades in subsequent courses.
Large-scale data demonstrating decreased disparities in outcomes (e.g., between genders, racial / ethnic backgrounds, first-gen / non-first-gen students, etc.).

*If examples of student work or comments from surveys are shared, care should be taken to ensure that students cannot be identified. It is also a good practice to inform students in advance how their work may be used.

Evidence from Peers

Evidence from peers might include a colleague’s description of:

A classroom observation;
A review of course materials; or
Curricular collaboration (e.g., co-planning a course, revising a sequence of courses);
Teaching-related awards (or nominations).

Teaching Artifacts

Teaching artifacts might include:

Syllabi;
Lesson plans or materials;
Lecture slides;
Handouts;
Assignments or assessments;
Grading rubrics;
Study guides;
Descriptions of classroom activities or routines;
Instructions for projects;
Discussion guidelines;
Protocols for student peer review / feedback;
Screenshots of Bruin Learn site or other e-learning space (e.g., Slack, Campuswire, Piazza);
Examples of instructor feedback on anonymized student work; or
Course map showing how activities or assessments align with intended student learning.

Evidence of Efforts to Improve Teaching

Evidence of efforts to improve teaching might include documentation of:

Participation in professional development;
Participation in formative peer observation;
Collaboration with UCLA faculty or units (e.g., Writing Programs, Center for Community Engagement) focused on improving teaching;
Collaboration with departmental colleagues to plan sequential or related courses;
Mentoring faculty colleagues on teaching;
Service on a curriculum or assessment committee; or
Teaching-related publications, presentations, or grant applications.

Concrete Examples Keyed to the Dimensions of Excellent Teaching

Engaging Students

Syllabi or screenshots of Bruin Learn site or other e-learning space (e.g., Slack, Campuswire, Piazza), showing clear course expectations and logistics
Screenshots of Bruin Learn site or other e-learning space (e.g., Slack, Campuswire, Piazza), showing instructor’s regular “presence” in an asynchronous course
Descriptions of classroom activities or routines to welcome or engage students
Lesson plans or lecture slides that describe students’ opportunities for active learning, collaboration, practice, etc.
Materials that give students ways to organize their learning other than traditional, student-initiated note-taking from textual slides or during lecture (e.g., reading guides, note-taking templates, timelines, diagrams, concept maps, main-idea-detail charts, etc.)
Assignments or activities that engage students in metacognition (e.g., exam wrappers, assignment reflections, etc.)
Anonymized examples of student work where students have engaged in metacognition
Assignments that are scaffolded, suggest related learning resources, etc.
Colleague’s description of a classroom observation or review of materials that includes how instructor engages students as active participants
Data demonstrating student engagement (e.g., record of participation)
Feedback from students (e.g., on a mid-quarter survey) about how the course engages them

Equitable

Syllabi that include statements addressing diversity, accessibility, classroom climate, basic-needs resources, etc.
Screenshots of Bruin Learn site or other e-learning space (e.g., Slack, Campuswire, Piazza), showing good accessibility practices
Protocols that foster respectful, helpful student peer review / feedback
Discussion guidelines that create an environment where all students can learn
Lesson plans or lecture slides that show the inclusion of multiple perspectives on complex or controversial issues
Teaching materials created by people from different backgrounds
Teaching materials that show how issues of equity and social justice are included in course content
Descriptions of activities, handouts, or materials that help students build missing background knowledge
Grading rubrics, exemplars that are provided to students for assessments or assignments
Description of classroom routines that foster equitable “air time” for all students
Lesson plans that include multiple interaction structures and modalities (e.g., whole-group and small-group discussion; students share ideas verbally, in writing, or by completing in-class polls)
Assignments that incorporate student choice
Lesson plans or assignments that draw on students’ backgrounds, experiences
Analysis of grades disaggregated by demographic groups and description of teaching strategies to address equity gaps
Descriptions of specific incidents when sensitive areas of the content were addressed or charged learning situations were navigated to maintain an inclusive environment
Colleague’s description of a classroom observation or review of materials that includes how instructor creates or maintains an inclusive environment
Feedback from students (e.g., on a mid-quarter survey) about class climate

Learning Centered and Responsive

Syllabi that include course-level intended learning
Lecture slides, screenshots of Bruin Learn site or other e-learning space (e.g., Slack, Campuswire, Piazza), that show how lesson-level intended learning is shared with students
Materials that explicitly indicate for students how the intended learning will be assessed or how an assignment supports intended learning
Lesson plans, lecture slides, or descriptions of activities where the instructor conducts low-stakes, formative assessment (e.g., in-class polls, exit tickets, quick-writes) to get just-in-time information about how students are learning
Lesson plans, lecture slides, or descriptions of activities with points where the instructor can “pivot,” depending on how student learning is unfolding (e.g., depending on student responses during activity X, the instructor can proceed with activity Y or activity Z)
Multi-stage projects where students receive feedback after each stage
Feedback from students (e.g., on a mid-quarter survey), along with evidence (e.g., paired, before-and-after syllabi, assignments, etc.) of how the instructor responded (e.g., revisions to expectations, routines, class policies, assignments, lessons, etc.)
Course map that keeps track of how lesson-, activity-, and assignment-level intended learning is assessed and builds to course-level intended learning
Anonymized examples of student work with comments that show how instructor’s feedback refers to intended student learning
Data demonstrating student achievement (e.g., exam or assignment grades; summaries of performance on different dimensions of a grading rubric), along with evidence (e.g., paired, before-and-after syllabi, assignments, etc.) of how the instructor responded (e.g., revisions to reading list, assignments, lessons, etc.)
Colleague’s description of a classroom observation or review of materials that includes how instructor aligns activities to intended learning, engages in formative assessment, or responds to student learning as it unfolds

Striving to Improve

Any form of evidence listed above that shows how the instructor implemented changes to their teaching because of suggestions from colleagues, consistent patterns in SETs, reflection, or engagement in professional development
A description of:
- Participation in professional development;
- Participation in formative peer observation;
- Collaboration with UCLA faculty or units (e.g., Writing Programs, Center for Community Engagement), focused on improving teaching;
- Collaboration with departmental colleagues to plan sequential or related courses;
- Mentoring faculty colleagues on teaching;
- Service on a curriculum or assessment committee; or
- Teaching-related awards (or nominations), publications, presentations, or grant applications.

Evaluation Lenses in HET

	Proficiency Lens	Improvement Lens
	“Where are you on a map of excellent teaching?”	“How are you moving further along the road to excellent teaching?”
Purpose	Evaluate the state of an instructor’s teaching (i.e., how proficient they are at teaching)	Evaluate the instructor’s efforts to improve their teaching
What instructors do	Provide evidence of the static quality of their teaching	Provide evidence of engagement in improvement efforts

A cornerstone of HET is the idea that evaluation should take into account not just the current state of an instructor’s teaching, but their efforts to improve their teaching, as well. In the HET framework, this idea is described in terms of two lenses.

When evaluators look through the proficiency lens, they are asking, “How proficient at teaching is this instructor?” They consider proficiency in three of the HET dimensions: “Engaging Students,” “Equitable,” and “Learning Centered and Responsive.” When evaluators look through the improvement lens, they are asking, “To what extent is this instructor trying to improve their teaching?” This aligns with the dimension, “Striving to Improve.”

Put simply, looking through the proficiency lens means focusing on quality of teaching at a moment in time, while looking through the improvement lens means focusing on growth over time. By using HET, evaluators can be sure they have considered an instructor’s teaching through both lenses.

Holistic Evaluation of Teaching at UCLA

Introduction to the Project

HET in Departments

HET and Unit 18 Lecturers

HET FAQs

Timeline

← Ongoing consultation with the Senate and academic leadership →

Project Team

Advisory Committee Members

Steering Committee Members

Motivation and Context for HET

Insights, Support, and Guidance from the UCLA Community

Engaging in initial HET adaptation work

Completed initial HET adaptation work

Presented initial adapted version of HET to faculty

Adopting HET for either voluntary or required use

Implementing HET: use by some faculty in personnel review

Implementing HET: use by most faculty in personnel review

Cohort 1

Cohort 2

HET Framework

Conducting A Review Using the HET Framework

Dimensions of Excellent Teaching in HET

Sources of Evidence in HET

Teaching Statement

HET Folder

Categories of Evidence

Concrete Examples Keyed to the Dimensions of Excellent Teaching

Evaluation Lenses in HET

CONNECT