As it continues its quest for international excellence, the University of Macau (UM) has always focused on exceptional quality teaching. This year, UM conducted a revised survey to evaluate teaching effectiveness of the faculty members. The results of the survey show that UM’s teaching quality is rated high by the students.
The survey evaluates the quality of teaching from the students’ perspective. It used a 6-point rating scale (1=strongly disagree, 6=strongly agree). The average ratings of undergraduate programmes and post-graduate programmes for the first semester of 2010/2011 academic year were 4.92 and 4.79 respectively.
“These fabulous numbers show how our teachers are excellent educators as well as distinguished scholars. We have used this scale for the last two semesters and students have continued to rate faculty extremely highly. We need to applaud the work of our distinguished faculty members who are committed to teaching,” said Prof. Rik Carl D’Amato, director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning Enhancement (CTLE) and head of the Department of Psychology at UM, adding that the result is consistent with the past semester which also showed extremely high quality teaching.
“Quality teaching is what we do best,” said Prof. D’Amato.
CTLE is a newly-established academic support unit at UM. It is responsible for enhancing the quality of teaching, undergraduate and graduate research, and carrying out assessment through developing specific programmes about faculty development and student engagement. It focuses on enabling teaching excellence, and it provides class videotaping, peer observations, instructor observations, mentoring, professional development, general education, e-learning, educational technology, sample syllabi, and other services to UM students and staff.