Comments | academics_anon: Student Evaluations versus tenure/promotions?

cheez_ball in academics_anon

Student Evaluations versus tenure/promotions?

Mar 03, 2009 13:49

This (an editorial from this past Sunday's Houston Chronicle) has been a serious topic of discussion among the faculty of my university for the last few months. I'm not sure if it's been discussed here recently, so if this a duplicate post, I apologize.

For the link phobic, there is a move in Texas (I don't know about elsewhere) for tenure and ( Read more... )

tenure, student-evaluations

Comments 51

borbor_chan March 3 2009, 20:07:56 UTC

(shrugs) tough call.
I've taught both BA and Master's level students and they have a much better sense of my approach in the classroom than any of the profs I've been a teaching fellow for.
On the other hand, that doesn't mean that they're always terribly thoughtful on their evaluations. A lot of mine come back with comments on how nice my hair is (!?!?). Not exactly what I'd want at a tenure committee.

suitablyemoname March 3 2009, 20:15:30 UTC

"At Quendleton State University, we use a progressive metric when making tenure decisions. You will be assessed for teaching and mentorship, research and publications, and academic and institutional service, followed by the eveningwear and bikini competitions."

tyopsqueene March 4 2009, 09:43:22 UTC

Q10. How could this course be improved?
A10. Dr Tyopsqueene could wear low cut tops more often.

Not kidding.

I'm fairly anti-using student rankings for anything other than a very vague notion of whether someone is a horrific, average, or excellent teacher.

knut_hamson March 3 2009, 20:13:41 UTC

I'm all for finding more inane and pointless ways to evaluate faculty for tenure.

Personally, I want head shots and feats of strength to come into play, as well.

matrygg March 3 2009, 20:40:16 UTC

I want something where I can leverage my D&D skills and like of Batman.

knut_hamson March 3 2009, 20:42:22 UTC

I think we need to start keeping our various attributes on our CVs. I'm a +7 lecturer and a +6 grader.

matrygg March 3 2009, 20:47:19 UTC

Well, I'm only a +2 lecturer, but I have a pen of snarkiness, which gives me a +5 to grading. Do I include that on the CV?

Thread 23

In a quoted nutshell... sensaes March 3 2009, 20:17:37 UTC

"...education is not a commodity, but a way of life."

lostreality March 3 2009, 20:20:57 UTC

well empirical research (don't know the cite off hand, but this is a area my adviser works in) shows that teacher evaluations tend to be biased based on

a) the subject of the class and
b) the gender and race of the teacher and
c) an interaction between the two (for instance women teaching business are rated worse than men, not as true in less quantitative courses.)

so I think it's a bad idea.

lostreality March 3 2009, 20:21:42 UTC

oh also isn't there a huge correlation between grades a teacher gives out and their teacher evaluations? So it would probably encourage grade inflation too.

aileen8aalien March 3 2009, 20:36:53 UTC

Yes. And you should see people bend over backward to try and keep those evals high. But as I said below, I don't think committees are so dumb as to take evals as gospel. I think it's just another component to try and gauge classroom performance.

lostreality March 3 2009, 20:47:10 UTC

True. they are so biased though. Last semester before I left so they could fill out the evaluations I was like "I don't want to influence your evaluations in any way, but I would appreciate if you could write constructive comments in the comment section because I use them to improve my teaching for next semester."

Anyways, instead of constructive criticism I got a TON of comments about how awesome I am (from like 90% of my students). While I like to think my teaching has improved and I am an awesome teacher now, I don't think it's improved THAT much. A friend of mine did a similar thing, but with even more potential bias- she asked her students to write comments becuase she told them she was going on the job market next year- and she got tons of great comments saying how awesome she was too. So it seems to be really easy to influence what kind of evaluations you get.

Thread 13

the_lady_lily March 3 2009, 20:25:44 UTC

I think that casting an eye at them to make sure that every single class a professor has taught hasn't totally bombed is fair - but I think that's about as far as they can go in usefulness. If you can get good teaching evaluations, you're basically showing that you know how to play the student system. Our university-wide TA team runs a workshop that is essentially titled 'how to make the undergrads love you so they give you high numbers on those pesky forms'. The techniques are abysmally depressing - but they work. And I'm not sure which of those facts I'm more depressed by.