Free Advice Image1. During your first two years at Penn State, make time to sit in on the classes of several experienced teachers in your department. Do this once or twice a semester. If you will be teaching a large class then sit in on a large class. If you will be teaching a small class then sit in on a small class. Ask your Department Head who the best teachers in the department are, and start with them.

2. Read a couple of good books on teaching. Two excellent books available form Amazon.com are:

-McKeachie's Teaching Tips: Strategies, Research, and Theory for College and University Teachers by Wilbert J. McKeachie and Barbara K. Hofer.

- The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher's Life by Parker J. Palmer

Free Advice Image -Be very clear about the requirements and grading policies on your syllabus. Be enthusiastic about he material, and well-prepared, and the students will respond in kind.

Teaching at Penn State

Class Attendance

It is the policy of the University that class attendance by students be encouraged and that all instructors organize and conduct their courses with this policy in mind.  A student should attend every class for which the student is scheduled and should be held responsible for all work covered in the courses taken.  In each case, the instructor should decide when the class absence constitutes a danger to the student’s scholastic attainment and should make this fact known to the student at once.

A student whose irregular attendance causes him or her, in the judgment of the instructor, to become deficient scholastically, may run the risk of receiving a failing grade or receiving a lower grade than the student might have secured had the student been in regular attendance.

Instructors should provide, within reason, opportunity to make up work for students who miss class for regularly scheduled, University-approved curricular and extracurricular activities (such as Martin Luther King Day of Service, field trips, debate trips, choir trips, athletic events, etc).  However, if such scheduled trips are considered by the instructor to be hurting the student’s scholastic performance, the instructor should provide evidence for necessary action to the head of the department in which the course is offered and to the dean of the college in which the student is enrolled.

Instructors also should provide, within reason, opportunity to make up work for students who miss classes for other legitimate but unavoidable reasons. Legitimate, unavoidable reasons are those such as illness, injury, family emergency, or religious observance. If an evaluative event will be missed due to an unavoidable absence, the student should contact the instructor as soon as the unavoidable absence is known to discuss ways to make up the work. An instructor might not consider an unavoidable absence legitimate if the student does not contact the instructor before the evaluative event. Students will be held responsible for using only legitimate, unavoidable reasons for requesting a make-up in the event of a missed class or evaluative event. Requests for missing class or an evaluative event due to reasons that are based on false claims may be considered violations of the policy on Academic Integrity (Policy 49-20).

Holy Days calendar

Class absence form (PDF)

Guidelines for verification of student illness

Managing Classroom Disruption

Classroom disruptions are infrequent, but stressful when they occur. If you are having troubles with a disruptive student, consult your head immediately. He or she can give you advice and will know where to get further help, if needed. Also see the advice offered in this Faculty Senate document: Managing Classroom Disruption .

Office Hours

Accessibility to students in your classes is important. It is the expectation of the College that every instructor have scheduled office hours that make some effort to accomodate student schedules. Unless emergencies arise, the hours should be kept. The hours should be listed on the syllabus and posted near the office or at another place directed by the department. There is no fixed rule about how many office hours one should have. One rule of thumb is one hour for each hour of scheduled class time, but that would vary by class sizes, availability of TAs, and so forth. Of course, students should also be able to make appointments with their instructor at mutually convenient times.

Grading and Exam Policy

Instructors are required to provide information about the exam procedures to be used in the course and to demonstrate how grades will be determined on the course syllabus. This information must be given to students within the first ten days of class.  The percentage of the total grade for each item (mid-term exams, quizzes, final exams, homework, papers, projects, etc.) should be clearly outlined.  If attendance and/or participation are to be part of the course grade, you must state this.

If there is a disagreement about a grade, the student should try to resolve it with the instructor. If a disagreement about a grade cannot be resolved with the instructor, the student may follow the Grade Mediation and Adjudication procedure. (see: http://www.psu.edu/dus/handbook/ )

Note: Situations involving academic dishonesty are covered in Senate Policy 49-20. (See:  http://www.psu.edu/dus/handbook/  )

GRADES

Free Advice Image - Get a good sense from the previous instructor for what constitutes an A, a B, a C, a D, and flunking. Alternately stated, get a good sense for what the typical PSU student in your class is capable of doing. If you can articulate clearly and early on what constitutes an A etc, it'll save you a lot of energy arguing with students later.

While instructors determine the methods of evaluation for their courses, many have asked for a sample grade scale.  One suggested scale for point distribution follows:  A = 95 to 100, A- = 90 to 94.9, B+ = 87.9 to 89.9, B = 83.3 to 87.6, B- = 80 to 83.32, C+ = 75 to 79.9, C = 70 to 74.9, D = 60 to 69.9, F = 59.9 and below.  Note: The Penn State grading scale does not allow the option of awarding grades of C-, D+ or D- grades.                                   

Whatever grade scale you decide to use should be included on your course syllabus as part of the general information about the course.

Final course grades are required to be submitted no later than 48 hours after the final exam period and are submitted using eLION.  In order to use eLION, the faculty member must be the identified instructor of the course and must have a secured token.  Because this is a web-based application, grades can be submitted from any computer with internet access.

Grades may be recorded the day after the last day of the course. The date of the last day of the course is displayed on the Web Schedule of Courses and on ISIS screen ARUAC. The instructor will receive an e-mail reminder when their course(s) is ready to be graded. After entering grades, the instructor may return to enter additional grades, make revisions, or review previously entered grades. Grades and grade revisions entered on eLion are immediately available to the student which eliminates the need for mailed postcards, posting grades at your office, and e-mail and telephone inquiries from students. No grade rosters are required. No documents need to be returned to the Registrar's office. The grade audit trail is captured electronically. Grades may be submitted during the hours of 7:30 a.m. to 12 midnight from any computer connected to the Internet. Faculty will receive an immediate confirmation of submitted grades. After grade entry, faculty may view recorded grades and print a Grade Review Report for their files. Grade changes or corrections may be made using the eLion Grade Change application after a student has been grade reported or after the grade reporting period for the semester is completed (for up to one year). For more information on grade change policies, refer to G-5 Corrected Grades Procedures.

DF grades indicated a deferred grade in the course.  You may submit a deferred grade in your course, however, should only do so after discussing this with the student.  Please take into account whether or not you will actually be here 6 weeks into the student’s next enrollment and whether or not that will provide sufficient time for the student to meet your requirements.  A letter grade must be submitted by the end of the six-week of classes or it will automatically be recorded as an “F” grade. If you plan for the student to attend the course for the entire semester, note that you will be required to request an extension before the deferred grade runs out.  A request for extension should include the actual date the course is extended to.   In extreme cases (accident, injury, major illness) we may contact you to ask that you defer a student’s grades without the student being present. 

NG grades indicate that a grade was not available at the time of grade submission.  Please make every effort to contact students if you have questions about their course grade before submitting a NG notation.  Letter grades must be submitted for NGs by the end of the fourth week of classes in the following semester (summer not included unless the student is registered). 

WN = late dropped and no grade was available at that time

WF = late dropped and was failing at that time

WP = late dropped and was passing at that time

R grades indicated temporary assignment of research designation to be removed as soon as the research is complete.

AU grades indicate that a student is auditing (sitting in on) your class.  Only students who have made arrangements for an audit grade may be awarded the AU designation.

UN/SA grades indicate that the student has elected the satisfactory/unsatisfactory option, sometimes referred to as pass/fail.  UN indicates quality grades of D or F. 

Please refer to University policy 49-20 (http://www.psu.edu/dept/oue/aappm/) before assigning a grade of F based on academic dishonesty.

More information on grades: http://www.registrar.psu.edu/grades\grading_system.cfm

Final Exams

Each semester we investigate complaints about exams that were given during the last week of classes.  According to Faculty Senate policy, only quizzes and narrowly limited tests may be given during the final week of classes.  A reasonable interpretation is that those tests that comprise 10% or less of the students’ grades for the entire course may be given during the last week of classes.

Final exams are scheduled by the University Registrar.  Evening exams are only permitted if: consent is granted by the dean of the college in which the course is taught, no more than four evening exams are scheduled during the semester, they are scheduled in advance by the Registrar’s Office and are announced by the instructor in the first week of classes.  In case of conflict between evening exams and other scheduled University activities, or in case of more than one evening examination per day, the student is permitted to make up the examination without penalty.

Final Exam Information:http://www.registrar.psu.edu/exams\final.cfm. 

Mid-Semester Evaluations

The Registrar will collect and record information on mid-semester course performance for first and second semester degree seeking and provisional students as of the sixth week of fall and spring semesters.  Accordingly, some measure of student performance evaluation must take place prior to the sixth week of the fall and spring semesters.  The Registrar will distribute scan forms containing the names of first and second semester students in your course(s) prior to the sixth week of the semester.  There is very little turnaround time for this procedure.  You will complete the forms by identifying satisfactory or unsatisfactory for each student listed based on the student’s achievement as of the sixth week of the semester.

Students who are making unsatisfactory progress will be notified and asked to contact you and their academic advisor for assistance in helping them to improve their performance.

Graduation

Commencement ceremonies are held three times per year at Penn State and at the end of each semester.  We distribute diplomas only at the spring semester ceremony while diplomas are mailed to summer and fall graduates.

Graduating seniors are indicated with an asterisk by their names on your grade reporting form. 

Certification of seniors is an on-going activity with little to no turnaround time between final exams and the graduation ceremony.   

It is critical that you determine and record their grades promptly.  Additionally, as a land-grant University, Penn State has a large ROTC program.  Candidates for commissioning must be certified to graduate by noon on the Friday before commencement.  In fall and summer semesters, this is prior to the normal grade submission deadline. You are required to make whatever special arrangements are necessary to provide final grades for that small group of students by that deadline.  In the event that you cannot determine a grade for a graduating senior, or the grade is an “F”, please notify us as soon as possible at 863-3870.

Additional information about graduation is available at the following website:

            http://www.registrar.psu.edu/graduation\index.cfm

Student Rating of Teaching Effectiveness (SRTE)

The Student Rating of Teaching Effectiveness (SRTE) is a University-wide instructional assessment program mandated by the University Faculty Senate for purposes of promotion and tenure reviews and other academic personnel decisions. It involves in-class student ratings of teaching effectiveness using survey items drawn from a large pool of items dealing with teaching processes and outcomes. The SRTE survey form comprises three sections: the first section contains four required items, one rating the "overall effectiveness" of the course and the other rating the "overall effectiveness" of the instructor. The second section contains from five to fifteen items dealing with specific aspects of instruction that are selected by the academic department from a large pool of items. The final section contains from zero to five items selected by the instructor from the pool of survey items. Other data useful in interpreting the survey results, such as class size, proportion responding, and whether the course is required or an elective, are also collected.

The SRTE should be administered during the last two weeks of a course, but not in the same class period in which a test is given.

For more on the SRTE process see:   http://www.psu.edu/dept/vprov/studentrating.htm

 

Free Advice Image - Consider posting your lectuer notes online using ANGEL. It is very easy to use, and in most large classes, students can purchase the notes anyway. Posting your notes online will also save you the time of responding to email requests asking to copy your notes.