tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post4978672052427082276..comments2024-03-09T03:20:20.004-05:00Comments on Tenured Radical: Uncivil Liberties: Teaching Evaluations and A ClarificationTenured Radicalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05703980598547163290noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-90694792035553847822010-06-29T09:42:13.174-05:002010-06-29T09:42:13.174-05:00But... Butt... TR... whats the matter with being a...But... Butt... TR... whats the matter with being a social historian? <br /><br />...why some of my best friends are social historians <br /><br />(as he brushed off the leather elbow patches on his tweed jacket and contemplatively puffed on his pipe)<br /><br />BTY – Student evaluations, even on-line evals, are fine, as long as I get to pick the questions. I have found the questions I ask on the evals invaluable for improving my teaching. I am not sure that they can be used for tenure and promotion.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-48480906588180617832010-06-28T13:46:31.431-05:002010-06-28T13:46:31.431-05:00on student evals: one thing that has always struck...on student evals: one thing that has always struck me is the timing. With paper evals (& I'm not sure if this changes with new online systems), we ask students to evaluate the course at the point when their anxiety about it is at its highest -- right before the exam (or whatever final assessment).<br /><br />At this point in the course, students tend to believe that they have learned nothing and are going to fail. This translates into negative comments about the course.<br /><br />I have had students come up to me after an exam and ask if they can change their comments. Once in the actual exam, they realized that they knew much more than they thought and wanted to revise their evaluation in a positive direction.<br /><br />I agree with your other points. (And the whole idea of academic celebrity makes me queasy.)JoVEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16680602039278597976noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-83998556294604378072010-06-28T03:14:28.795-05:002010-06-28T03:14:28.795-05:00I read your blog periodically and agree with Anon ...I read your blog periodically and agree with Anon 1:01's first paragraph. Contrary to the comment you deleted, I think you're generally not snide and there's very little rancor in your postings. On the other hand, you do tend to caricature conservative arguments, but that's probably an occupational hazard.AYYnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-83381991766706212822010-06-27T09:15:37.337-05:002010-06-27T09:15:37.337-05:00TR--I hadn't connected my Tool Post to your po...TR--I hadn't connected my Tool Post to your post on the FQS, but now I see that they're both a kind of comment on certain academic celebrities, and as we have both discovered, academic celebrities have their rabid fanboiz and fangirlz who can't let one person on the internets disagree with them without a nasty response. <br /><br />Oh, well.<br /><br />As for student evals: GayProf had a really thoughtful post on the consequences of going to on-line evals recently at his place (last 18 months or so?) I need to read the Fish-Douthat exchange (someone remind me: what precisely are Douthat's credentials for commenting on higher education issues? Anyone? Anyone?), but it seems to be that any department that requires student evals in T&P dossiers without conducting peer reviews of the teaching are committing gross malpractice.Historiannhttp://historiann.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-82850902059767874162010-06-26T21:52:54.338-05:002010-06-26T21:52:54.338-05:00I always thought that my alma mater was remarkably...I always thought that my alma mater was remarkably civilized about such things. In the mid-90s, we were required to fill out teaching-evaluations on ancient little terminal machines maintained solely for that purpose. (Literally; they were hauled out of some closet near the statistics lab around exam-time, powered up for a few days, and hauled back into it afterwards.) They were strictly numerical, on a 1-5 or 1-10 scale with a bunch of different questions, but they only took about 10 minutes to do. It was optional to fill out a handwritten form giving more detailed anecdotes, but those who didn't do the computer evaluation got fined some small-but-significant amount on our university accounts. I now understand that this system was part of the formal T&P process in some way, but that didn't register for me at the time.<br /><br />There was another side to teaching evaluations, though: the department of Student Affairs, I think, or maybe it was the SGA, conducted and published its own course surveys for the benefit of students. The Aspects surveys were partially numerical, but the real value in them was the written-out comments. Because students were writing specifically for other students who'd end up using the published surveys as a course-selection guide, people mostly didn't misrepresent. It was easy to tell when a professor had a cult following and when an anonymous student had a grudge, and that in itself was worth knowing before signing up for any given class. This was before RateMyProfessors, but it wasn't dissimilar (except, perhaps, in being more civil.) <br /><br />The published-on-paper format was also useful. Every student house got 1 or 2 copies of each semester's reports, and the backissues stayed around year to year. You could read the past 2-3 years of Aspects to find out who taught really interesting courses that you'd never thought of taking, or to find out which instructor you should angle for in a departmental course that rotated through different instructors every year.<br /><br />Did professors read their reviews in Aspects? I'm sure they did, and I'm sure that some believed their students were being petty. But they didn't have their effectiveness as teachers officially evaluated by that guide, and the separation seemed to work fairly well.shanehttp://cliotropic.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-6900339972746480312010-06-26T17:22:26.805-05:002010-06-26T17:22:26.805-05:00The whole "student-as-consumer/professor-as-s...The whole "student-as-consumer/professor-as-service-provider" model has made impossible the existence of evaluations that might actually help us do our jobs better. If you don't pander and coddle, you are guaranteed low numbers and scathing comments (i.e., "not student friendly"). The anonymity doesn't help, either. God knows most of the mean comments we get are uttered by people who don't have the skirt to say these things to our faces (or to even let us know that something was amiss to begin with). <br /><br />All that said, my evals have been good, so I swear I'm not bitter. I just find myself cynical about the whole process. I don't need a bunch of anonymous surveys to tell me when I did well (or not).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-22497240195108752642010-06-26T17:00:12.289-05:002010-06-26T17:00:12.289-05:00Adding you to the blogroll.
Great post, I am wor...Adding you to the blogroll. <br /><br />Great post, I am working on something similar. I too am really struck by the meanness of evaluations as of late. Is it the economy, entitlement, general snowflakery?<br /><br />chauncey devegachaunceydevegahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09652406326490873337noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-79654894914922374492010-06-26T13:01:21.389-05:002010-06-26T13:01:21.389-05:00The latter half of this post is a great commentary...The latter half of this post is a great commentary on academic celebrity. Because I don't get the joke -- the punchline at the end about social historians. (I'm not an academic and don't understand what's wrong with social historians).<br /><br />Otherwise, I enjoy reading your blog (my daughter's in academe and I occasionally browse these blogs to see what her life is all about).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36212542.post-9863786811204119392010-06-26T12:35:36.458-05:002010-06-26T12:35:36.458-05:00recent exchange between Stanley Fish and Ross Dout...<i>recent exchange between Stanley Fish and Ross Douthat<br /></i><br />Independent of whatthefuckever they may have been "exchanging" about, that concept is so fucking horrible in so many ways, I don't even know what the fuck to say. It's the apotheosis of just fucking shoot me.<br /><br />And BTW, since when is "snide" an insult?Comrade PhysioProfhttp://physioprof.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.com