Presenter: Gina Florio, St. John's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

How can we measure our effectiveness in the classroom?  How do we measure our students’ learning and progress?  How can we improve our instruction and student learning outcomes?  The instructional methods we employ have a dramatic impact on the level of student engagement in our classrooms, which in turn, is correlated with student achievement.  In this session, we will introduce some evidence-based recommendations around improving student engagement.  We will emphasize the benefits of faculty peer mentoring for professional development and improving instructional effectiveness.  We will explore the utility of adopting classroom observation instruments, such as the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM or COPUS, to measure how both the instructor and students are spending time in their classroom.  Finally, we will discuss the ways in which these assessment data can be used to target faculty professional development and instructional improvements.