Faculty Guide | Stern Teaching Effectiveness Program

"Excellent Teaching involves pedagogical practices that have a sustained, substantial, and positive impact on the way students think, act, and feel." (Ken Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do, 2004)


 

Stern is committed to creating dynamic learning communities. The School's professors draw students into frameworks for solving problems and applying skills and knowledge to the challenges present in a global business world.
As part of the effort to enhance the learning of very talented students, the Stern Teaching Effectiveness Program (STEP) requires every full and part-time faculty to periodically formally consider: What do you do to facilitate a sustained, substantial and positive impact on student learning? In other words, what about your teaching is successful and what are areas of possible growth, innovation, and change?

STEP's goal is to exchange ideas and provide meaningful professional development. Observations and consultations are confidential. They are not used in promotion and tenure decisions. The Faculty Affairs Department, however, keeps records of your participation.

Fulfill Your STEP Requirement
If you receive a notice from Faculty Affairs that it is time for your STEP, please complete this form. Most STEP consultations involve a pre-observation discussion of course goals, methods and learning outcomes. Faculty and consultants mutually agree upon a time for a class visit. The STEP experience concludes with a post-observation meeting in which the consultant and professor reflect on the class. 

Teaching-specific professional development encourages us to challenge our assumptions regarding how we conduct class. There are, of course, helpful lists of research-based behaviors to help improve teaching rather quickly.

However, as with any discipline, the exploration of excellent teaching ultimately requires "careful and sophisticated thinking, deep professional learning, and often fundamental conceptual shifts" (Bain). 

I look forward to our conversations and hope that together we can advance teaching and learning excellence at Stern.

- Carol Robbins
  STEP Director

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Ways to Engage: Stern Faculty Talk About Their Teaching
NYU Stern values excellent teaching and is committed to continuous professional development. I've had the pleasure to speak with Stern Faculty about aspects of their teaching and the reasons they do what they do in the classroom. They address issues such as relevance and application of content, group projects, student accountability, inquiry, problem solving, collaboration, laptop and cell phone policies, and building sound relationships. Each professor, without exception, seeks to foster student learning that has a sustained and positive impact on students' intellectual, professional and personal growth. 
 
Listen to the conversations below. You may recognize similarities in your teaching. I also suspect that you may employ other equally effective ways to to engage.

In this conversation, Stern Professors, Tom Pugel, Christine Cuny, Jared Watson, Ilan Lobel, and Yu Shi highlight some of their teaching practices.