Teaching and Learning Committee
The Teaching and Learning Committee’s charge is to promote efforts to improve teaching, teaching facilities and the atmosphere for learning throughout the College; to advise the faculty, administration and the Board of Trustees on matters related to maintaining and improving teaching effectiveness; and to recommend programs and procedures regarding the evaluation and improvement of teaching.
Course Auditing Program
The Dean of Faculty office provides funds for textbook materials to faculty who audit an entire course. This program is limited to a few faculty members per semester. Preference will be given to faculty who wish to attend HMC core courses, but the program is open for faculty to attend any course at any of the Claremont colleges. An announcement for the program will be emailed to faculty before each semester.
Teaching Observation Programs
HMC faculty have the opportunity to take advantage of two programs that encourage instructors to observe each other in the classroom and to discuss their teaching. Both programs offer formal incentives for participants, with a few differences.
HMC Peer Observation Program (POP)
The HMC Peer Observation Program is available to faculty members who would like one of their HMC colleagues to visit their class, observe their teaching, and join them for an off-campus lunch or dinner to discuss their feedback. Faculty interested in observing a colleague’s teaching may also choose to participate.
Multi-Campus Teaching Observation Program
The Multi-Campus Teaching Observation Program gives faculty from Harvey Mudd College, Scripps and Pitzer an opportunity to receive feedback on their teaching from faculty from other participating schools. The program provides a $100 honorarium to the observing faculty member for attending two or three classes, and pays for an on-campus lunch for the two participants.
Supplemental Course Evaluation Questions
There are two ways you can supplement the standard questions on the Teaching Evaluation forms.
- Method 1: There are now spaces at the bottom of the standard form for 5 multiple-choice questions of your choosing.
- Method 2: You can add short answer questions of your own design.
To supplement questions using either method, you will need to create your own question sheet. The data from Method 1 will be machine scored and returned to you with the usual data. The papers from Method 2 will be returned to you after grades have been submitted. The RPT Committee does not receive this information unless the faculty member chooses to provide it.
Talking Teaching Lunches
Talking teaching lunches are opportunities for faculty to present and discuss ideas related to teaching and learning. Occasionally the TLC will also organize a reading group or a longer seminar. These opportunities will be announced by email.
Idea Buffets
Idea Buffets are a series of social events for HMC faculty featuring informal remarks from representatives of each department on a chosen topic. The panelists provide a short description of how that topic is viewed from the perspective of their discipline.
Resources
- TLC Library on Sprague 4th Floor
- Teaching and Learning Resources Folder on Sakai