So I work in a small chemistry department with only 15 academic faculty. Everyone pretty much does what they want at the undergraduate level of teaching without any sort of feedback from colleagues either internally or externally both with regards to the teaching material and its assessment. I am wondering whether establishing section heads (organic, inorganic, physical and analytical) to oversee and review teaching practices and exam evaluations would be worth while for a Department of this size (15 faculty and 45 students/yr). I'd like to hear from any colleagues that in particular faced the same situation and either decided for or against the creation of Section Heads and also whether their roles, where implemented, were strictly defined.
It's not a bad idea to make section head to review teaching system. But students can also give feedback through online about the teaching of their course teacher which can improve the teaching system a lot. For evaluating exam, two examiner system will be good. The course teacher will evaluate the exam paper first and then a second examiner will evaluate the exam paper again. After evaluating by two examiners, you can use the average of both examiner's mark for the grade.
We had a similar problem at a university I taught for some years. We had only a departmental Chairperson and no section heads. With only 4 faculty and 10 part-time lecturers we never had a need for section heads. So as the faculty we would review the examinations only. My university used what Anwar Khan suggested. It worked well, of course they where some part-time lecturers who would set substandard exams and even give sub-standard lecture but as the department we would give them all the guidelines they needed. Another advantage we had was 2 faculties were alumni of the department so enforcing quality was not a big problem since they knew they pitfalls and strengths of the program as a whole.
I don't think you need a section head. What you need active subgroups headed by a strong leader among yourselves that working together in their research and teaching duties. Each group should have a clear vision of what they want to achieve. Set targets, distribute responsibilities and measure achievements annually.
Dear Professor Panayiotis Koutentis, Improving the teaching standard and creating a section or department of studies has no direct relation. Maintaining the teaching standard is an individual instructor's responsibility. The dean of the faculty / college is responsible to monitor that standard followed by the instructor. The creation of section / department is only for the smooth management.
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