Why introducing or sustaining peer review of teaching is so hard, and what you can do about it

If you happen to meet a department chair who hasn’t had to handle a complaint about student evaluation of teaching, chances are that she or he hasn’t held the position very long. Whether they are pleased with their own ratings or think of evaluation of teaching instruments as the root of all evil, faculty members sense that there is something missing in a teaching evaluation system that relies on student opinion alone. They find that the information they receive is not detailed enough to guide their improvement and protest (often in contradiction to research findings) that faculty influence these ratings in all sorts of ways, from “dumbing down” courses to inflating grades.