A complex activity like teaching is understood best when it is viewed from more than one perspective. Each perspective can offer valuable information, but none by itself gives the whole picture.

CIDR has identified a variety of perspectives to consider when you are assessing your teaching. The Assessment Pie Chart presents these perspectives and a variety of sources for information from each perspective.

Considered in this way, Student Ratings provide one source of student perspectives on your teaching. Other sources of student perspectives include gathering midterm student feedback and implementing other forms of in-class student feedback. Any of these sources of information can be a useful way to find out what students think of your teaching.

However, students will see a class differently than a peer or colleague in your department, and a department administrator will have yet another perspective. Your own perspective based on your day-to-day experience of teaching is also a source of information.

Another source of information to help you assess your teaching is the documentation of student learning outcomes. Clearly there are many factors that account for student learning in addition to how well the course was taught, but student learning adds another piece to the picture that is distinct from student perceptions of the course and also distinct from the perceptions of the instructor, peers, colleagues, and administrators.

A final source of information can come from research on teaching and learning. Some learning outcomes for your course may not be readily identifiable during the course itself: For example, what kinds of teaching practices encourage students to stay in the major rather than dropping out? What contributes most to students' success after they graduate? You can also assess your teaching by comparing your ways of teaching to classroom practices that have been demonstrated to be effective through research in areas such as these.