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 the 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.