This semester, I presented my undergraduates with a challenging course. I expected them to participate in class and keep up with assignments. I told them straight out that if they were not to come prepared, stay home. I did not coddle them.
The best students thrived on the regimen. The lazy students of course hated it. Naturally, I just got whacked on evaluations this semester by my darling undergraduates. The lower scores are just enough to drop me into a lower “category” for raises.
I ran the numbers, and my decision to teach a rigorous course just cost me about $2,000 spread over my teaching career. That does not include the lost money from summer courses, which are based upon my full-time salary, which in turn in part is influenced by my teaching evaluations. If my evaluations really drop, the cost increases dramatically. The worst case scenario is that really bad evaluations in a given year can cost me as much as $7,000 over the course of my career. Students will impact my salary like this each year, every year.
Thus, I have a strong incentive to keep those numbers up however I possibly can. The obvious solution is to make my course so incredibly easy that even the laziest, whiniest undergraduate can’t help but do well. I am tempted to flood them with wonderment for poor answers and shower them with praise for undeserved effort. I just cannot bring myself to do this — I just can’t I care too much about teaching quality — and it will (literally) cost me. —Untenured —Evaluations are serious business (Chronicle Forums)
I’m certainly not blogging this because I think evaluations aren’t important, but it is important to see how pandering to student approval can result in watering down the educational system.
Standardized tests like the SAT don’t really measure a student’s academic potential — they instead measure a student’s ability to complete standardized tests. The same goes for standardized teacher evaluations, which are very good at measuring what students think they’ve learned.
I have never bought doughnuts or shown a movie in order to get my students in a good mood before passing out evaluation forms, though I certainly avoid passing out the forms on days when they’ll be affected (positively or negatively) by their most recent grades.
At Seton Hill, my division chair sits in on a class session once a semester, and the academic dean sits in on a session once a year. By doing so, they get a good sense of what the class dynamic is like, which provides context for the numbers.
I played hooky to go see Wild Robot this afternoon, so I went back to…
I first started teaching with this handout in 1999 and posted it on my blog…
In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. @thepublicpgh
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Wow. What a strange situation.
I still can't get over the idea in the article you point to that the teacher's school determines his salary based on student teaching evaluations alone. Those should only be one slice of the evaluative pie. Moreover, evaluations should solely be a tool for teachers to try to develop and improve at teaching -- much like comments on a graded paper are meant to help students become better writers -- rather than a contract renewal instrument.
However, I do believe that if the majority of evaluations for any one class are overwhelmingly negative, I do believe that should raise a red flag to the teacher -- who should at least try to accomodate and adjust to the students in some concrete way. Administrators shouldn't have to enforce this, but that's what they sadly often have to do. Teaching is a communicative act -- a two-way street -- just like writing -- and one often has to consider the audience's needs as much as his or her own.
Establishing this kind of rapport is extremely important. Most PhDs are hired because they are experts in their subject matter; they have to learn how to teach on the job, and that's where the kind of dynamic you describe can really shine. Thanks for a good example.
"What students think they've learned."
I found I didn't learn much from high school when I came to college. If I go to grad school and get lost, I will -know- I didn't learn much my college professors ;)
I guess what I should say is that sometimes it's obvious when a teacher cannot teach. It's also obvious when a student isn't trying or just can't learn. Should we put the burden of education fully on the student? The teacher? Who's accountable, then?
If a teacher cannot teach, but the students are capable and motivated, it would be stupid to blame the students for being lazy and vice-versa. I wouldn't know where to begin for educational accountability.
Not all students are lazy just as much as not all teachers suck at teaching. A good example of improving the experience of education happened to me last year in a psychology class. In a certain class, students--including me--complained to the division chair about a new professor. The professor did not seem to be teaching effectively. In fact, the content of the lectures were on slides that were availble on J-Web.
The class was not challenging nor engaging. Then, at the class time when the professor was to be monitored by the division chair, the new professor brought a great insight. The example was the clinical practice of process therapy: the idea that open communication is critical. Then, the professor asked for feedback and instead of hiding behind excuses, the professor admitted the anxieties of teaching.
If both professor and student could continually have this dynamic of mutual respect and feedback, I think that would be a giant step toward improving the educational experience of both student and teacher.