Today, education is being directed to achieve specific goals, which are viewed as factors to make teachers work effectively and efficiently. For institutions to ensure that educators deliver what they have been assigned to in the right manner, performance assessment has become a necessity. The purpose of doing an evaluation of the quality of teaching is that through the process, institutions can come up with programs that will enhance change in the workplace as well support the teachers with their works. Therefore, this paper will focus on exploring activities that higher learning institutions can utilize to appraise the quality of teaching, especially the one that is carried out at the end of the semester surveys. For a detailed assessment, the paper will first identify the possible teaching quality evaluation activities for Australian National University, and then use principles of Barbara Minto’s Pyramid to implement the most useful activity.
Possible Teaching Evaluation Activities
Since the role of teaching is to ensure that students have the necessary skills for different tasks, one of the proposed teaching quality evaluation activity in this paper is assessing the competence of the learners in relation toa their research skills and the capabilities to address learning activities. As Australian National University (ANU) prepares to conduct a survey that will show if the teachers in the institution have offered quality skills on the students, assessing the capabilities of the students as taught by the instructors can be a better strategy to identify the tutor’s effectiveness. In reference to this argument, Stokking et al. (2004) point out that for institutions to determine the skills that students have acquired from the teaching programs, they can review the performance of the students, and then from the finding understand if the teachers have been quality enough with their work. Thus, when the performance of the students at ANU suggest that the scoring level of the students have increased, this will be a good reason for the institution to claim that the teaching system is of high quality, reliable, and productive for all students learning in the school.
Conversely, the university can use the relationship between teachers and students to come up with findings that will demonstrate the quality of teaching within the institution. In this context, the university officials set to carry out research on the quality of education practice at ANU will be required to observe the essential characteristics that the teachers in the institution have, and the way these qualities are influencing the achievement of the students. Wayne and Youngs (2003) reveal that the characteristics of teachers matter a lot when it comes to the aspect of the quality of education, which is well defined through the aspect of student’s achievement. In agreement with this argument, Ibe, Nworgu, and Anyaegbunam (2016) posit that the characteristics of teachers are viewed as the attributes and behaviors that educators apply in the classroom and learning process. Hence, if the instructors at Australian National University have positive characteristics such as the ability to set high expectations for all learners, this will make the students achieve higher marks, which will evidently show the quality of learning in the university as per the role of the teachers.
The Australian National University can also apply a grading system as an activity to assess the quality of education processes and how the teachers are the main determinant of quality learning in the institution. Grading in the universities is used as a system to evaluate learner’s performance level together with their achievement. Sadler (2005) protrudes that grading in the higher learning institutions applies in both course work and the major piece of schoolwork that can be used to test and determine the progress of a student. In the process to create the grading system, teachers use student’s marks to determine different symbolic representation for the entire performance of the learners. In most cases, grading symbols include letters such as A, B, C, D, in which through these symbols, teachers can rank/grade student’s performance, which in turn, will demonstrate the quality of teaching activities. As students are classified according to the quality of their work, the ANU can use the criteria to determine the quality of education. At this point, it can be argued that if the ANU finds out that the grades of the students studying the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) are consistently high, this will be a clear implication of the quality of teaching practices as executed by the tutors in the institution.
Moreover, universities and colleges can consider using the rubric document to measure and determine the quality of teaching practices. Reddy and Andrade (2010) allude that a rubric is more than just a learning material, as it can be used for different objectives such as defining the expectation of the students and describing the level of quality that is needed for them when addressing the coursework. Apparently, a rubric is used to describe what the students must deliver in different courses. The rubric is seen as an essential document that can help the university committee in determining the quality of education is that when teachers set a rubric that demands the students to deliver a quality piece of work, this will signify the quality of teaching as it will define the quality of education through coursework assignment. Consequently, this will give students an opportunity to demonstrate their skills, competence, and proficiency (Reddy and Andrade 2010). For the case of ANU, the institution can use the rubric as an approach to determining the quality of specific assignments, which will help the university to make understandable and dependable judgments about the quality of teaching within the institution.
Implementation of the Activities to Analyze Teaching quality
Typically, to determine the best way that ANU can use to assess quality within the BBA class, this analysis is based on the principles of Barbara Minto’s Pyramid. As mentioned earlier, higher learning institutions can use different methods to measure the quality of teaching (Minto 2009). However, to identify the best approach for this purpose, it is better to consider the need and resources that are available to conduct the assessment. For this to happen, the principles of Barbara Minto’s Pyramid are used, especially in the application of the three core areas of Minto’s Pyramid that are why, what, and how.
Based on the discussion on the different methods of assessing the quality of teaching, grading approach is recommended as the most efficient scheme that ANU needs to use for measuring the quality of education in the BBA course. Taras (2005) opines that the process of grading in the universities and colleges is a significant process, as it involves giving a clear indication of the student’s performance and classification of the students on the basis of their marks. Therefore, if grades recorded by the teachers are dependable, this is notably evident that the quality of teaching is at the right level and it is through this quality whereby students are gaining their achievements.
Before the implementation of grading at ANU, the University Committee should consider the reason why the program is sufficient to measure the quality of teaching. According to Wosik (2014), grading in the higher learning institution reward the superlative learners and the best students can only be achieved if there is the aspect of quality in the teaching programs. This means that the reason why ANU should use grading activity to evaluate the quality of education is that the approach produces the scores of different students, which correlates the work of the teachers in terms of the quality assignment, experience, and learning under the direction of educators. Besides, grading relates directly to the learning outcomes, and if the educational outcomes are positive, the grades will determine that the teaching practice is of high quality and the programs meet the expected goals. With this in mind, it will be relevant for the committee at ANU to implement the grading program as a method of gauging education quality.
Barbara Minto’s Pyramid proclaims that during the decision-making process, it is better for the decision maker to evaluate the decision by considering how the implementation process will take place (Minto 2009). The grading activity can be implemented in different ways. As such, to ensure that it gives the institution committee the desired outcome, the approach should be executed by making sure that the rating of students taking BBA course reflects what they learn in the class and the quality of learning process, as delivered by the faculty. Spooren, Brockx, and Mortelmans (2013) reveal that grading in the higher education institution has become a comprehensive factor of teaching evaluation, as it signifies learning progress for both students and teachers in the university. Thus, to implement the program, the committee at ANU should do this by remembering that the program is meant to measure the effectiveness of the entire faculty within the BBA program.
Finally, the proposed program will be implemented in the way that it is linked with ANU teaching processes and activities. This is according to Barbara Minto’s Pyramid, as the model proposes that when making quality decisions, people need to know the characteristics of the decision in order to ensure that when implemented it present a connection between the desired outcomes and its purpose (Minto 2009). In every university, the grading program incorporates both the teaching practices and learning styles that teachers use to deliver quality education based on the expectations of the students (Eid 2014). For effectiveness, grades are set through evaluation of course materials such as graded exams and assignments. Hence, when ANU committee uses grading to measure the quality of education in the BBA class, they need to use the program by incorporating the performance of the students and the level of learning quality as executed by the faculty. If the grading system shows that student’s performance is increasing, the committee evaluating the quality of teaching will have no doubt to claim that learning quality in the institution is increasing.
Conclusion
This paper explains the concept of assessing teaching quality in the higher learning institutions. Throughout the essay, it is apparent that universities are the most concerned educational center when it comes to making a selection on the best method to measure the quality of teaching. Importantly, through quality assessment programs, universities can apply a variety of tools to evaluate the competence and readiness of the teachers working in different departments within the institutions. For this discussion, grading is recommended as the most efficient practice that ANU committee needs to use when determining the wellness of teaching system. Although there are other frameworks that the university can use, grading tend to have a higher profile, as the practice links the students with the whole process of determining teaching quality. Hence, upon implementing the program teachers at ANU will become committed to their work and deliver the standard level of education to denote the quality of their practice.
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