I'm curious to see this study's methods and results.
So here's my little story: I had an awful calc II teacher in college. He was second worst teacher I ever encountered. I remember writing him a scathing evaluation listing specific things he did poorly. My of my classmates hated the guy too. He had tenure and was the department head if anyone cares.
I think my final calculus II grade was C. I know I didn't learn crap in that class. Yet, I got an A in calc III and in many other subsequent math classes. I sure as hell don't credit that idiot professor for preparing me well! My bad grade and harsh evaluation weren't didn't come about because of a challenging teacher, they were the result of an incompetent one. Thankfully, my totally awesome calc III had the patience to catch me (and other students) up on what we missed in the previous class. She's the one that deserves the credit.
@narfenugen There's no denying that truly crappy profs usually get bad evals; especially if they don't give away "A's" because they don't really give a shit or try to be your best friend. But those of us that have high standards are often perceived negatively...less friendly, cold, heartless, etc. Etc. We ruin 4.0's, trash people's scholarships and prevent graduations because we enjoy spreading misery and being disliked SO MUCH. When, in fact, my true goal is to share what my knowledge and experience tells me you need to know a about the topic and prepare you for the next level.
Towing that standard is often difficult because I expect students to work and sometimes frustrate them. I've never been considered an "easy" instructor. And although my evals have been mostly very good, I've also had my share of the poor evaluations that really lacked any merit. One of my favorite quotes was "Prof so and so is very intelligent, but she should not expect the same level of intelligence from her students." So, their assumption is they are stuiper, less capable than me? So, I should speak down to my students? Use smaller words? Hold their hand?
I haven't read the study, but I'd guess that the more experienced, stricter-grading profs got evals just a bit lower on the scale than the less-experienced, easier-grading ones. Over time, evals probably do help identify the truly incompetent teachers -- but that's probably, what, 10% of the faculty? The problem occurs when administrators assume that profs who are scoring within the explicitly-labeled "satisfactory" range, but .5 or so below their colleagues, are actually worse teachers than those colleagues. At least at my university, it's clear that most profs score within a pretty narrow range (probably 1.5 to at most 2 points out of a 5 point scale), and that the great majority of people who fall within that range are doing a thoroughly satisfactory job, though their immediate appeal to students may vary. I'm pretty sure that the outliers could be identified equally effectively (and more quickly) by tracking complaints to department chairs, deans, etc.
Instead, at least at my university, we have a system where various administrators receive printouts of scores below a certain (unannounced) cutoff point, and the administrators who immediately supervise the faculty members so identified then get to initiate conversations about "how we can help" the faculty members improve their teaching. The problem is that those performing the review often fail to notice (perhaps because of the way the printouts are generated) that the same professor got a much higher score from a second section of the same class in the same semester (which would seem to suggest that something other than his/her teaching played a role in producing the low(ish) -- and/or the higher -- score). I've had two of these conversations, each of which which quickly degraded into farce and/or stalemate as soon as I asked "why do *you* think that two sections, using the same syllabus, scheduled back to back, rated me so differently?" It probably didn't help that, at least in my case, both parties to the conversation had only the most basic statistical knowledge (probably just enough to realize that the conversation was, in fact, absurd).
There are not a lot of advantages to teaching many, many sections of a few core courses, but the situation does offer perspective in the same way that raising a large family does: you realize just how little is truly under your control.
@CDP Thanks for the actual study, but horrors, adjuncts are raked through the coals AGAIN (sigh). I understand where they are coming from, but it just RANKLES. Very interesting study, though. I'd recommend that more administrators read it, but I'd be grouped with the less qualified, easy, beloved adjunct in the study rather than the reality.
We did evals last week and I spent the next day clutching the side of my face to prevent my eyeball from exploding out of it (migraine). Connection? Perhaps.
Department chair emailed to say that I had a statistically significant number of students use the word "crazy" to describe me, although most mentioned that they meant it "in a good way."
ps: No, I do not know why my department chair doesn't have anything better to do at this time of the year than read course evaluations, but maybe he needed a laugh?
Gasp! -- You mean holding them to a higher standard *benefits* their education?
ReplyDeleteBlind with shock.
I'm curious to see this study's methods and results.
ReplyDeleteSo here's my little story: I had an awful calc II teacher in college. He was second worst teacher I ever encountered. I remember writing him a scathing evaluation listing specific things he did poorly. My of my classmates hated the guy too. He had tenure and was the department head if anyone cares.
I think my final calculus II grade was C. I know I didn't learn crap in that class. Yet, I got an A in calc III and in many other subsequent math classes. I sure as hell don't credit that idiot professor for preparing me well! My bad grade and harsh evaluation weren't didn't come about because of a challenging teacher, they were the result of an incompetent one. Thankfully, my totally awesome calc III had the patience to catch me (and other students) up on what we missed in the previous class. She's the one that deserves the credit.
@narfenugen
ReplyDeleteThere's no denying that truly crappy profs usually get bad evals; especially if they don't give away "A's" because they don't really give a shit or try to be your best friend. But those of us that have high standards are often perceived negatively...less friendly, cold, heartless, etc. Etc. We ruin 4.0's, trash people's scholarships and prevent graduations because we enjoy spreading misery and being disliked SO MUCH. When, in fact, my true goal is to share what my knowledge and experience tells me you need to know a about the topic and prepare you for the next level.
Towing that standard is often difficult because I expect students to work and sometimes frustrate them. I've never been considered an "easy" instructor. And although my evals have been mostly very good, I've also had my share of the poor evaluations that really lacked any merit. One of my favorite quotes was "Prof so and so is very intelligent, but she should not expect the same level of intelligence from her students." So, their assumption is they are stuiper, less capable than me? So, I should speak down to my students? Use smaller words? Hold their hand?
Bullshit^2
I haven't read the study, but I'd guess that the more experienced, stricter-grading profs got evals just a bit lower on the scale than the less-experienced, easier-grading ones. Over time, evals probably do help identify the truly incompetent teachers -- but that's probably, what, 10% of the faculty? The problem occurs when administrators assume that profs who are scoring within the explicitly-labeled "satisfactory" range, but .5 or so below their colleagues, are actually worse teachers than those colleagues. At least at my university, it's clear that most profs score within a pretty narrow range (probably 1.5 to at most 2 points out of a 5 point scale), and that the great majority of people who fall within that range are doing a thoroughly satisfactory job, though their immediate appeal to students may vary. I'm pretty sure that the outliers could be identified equally effectively (and more quickly) by tracking complaints to department chairs, deans, etc.
ReplyDeleteInstead, at least at my university, we have a system where various administrators receive printouts of scores below a certain (unannounced) cutoff point, and the administrators who immediately supervise the faculty members so identified then get to initiate conversations about "how we can help" the faculty members improve their teaching. The problem is that those performing the review often fail to notice (perhaps because of the way the printouts are generated) that the same professor got a much higher score from a second section of the same class in the same semester (which would seem to suggest that something other than his/her teaching played a role in producing the low(ish) -- and/or the higher -- score). I've had two of these conversations, each of which which quickly degraded into farce and/or stalemate as soon as I asked "why do *you* think that two sections, using the same syllabus, scheduled back to back, rated me so differently?" It probably didn't help that, at least in my case, both parties to the conversation had only the most basic statistical knowledge (probably just enough to realize that the conversation was, in fact, absurd).
There are not a lot of advantages to teaching many, many sections of a few core courses, but the situation does offer perspective in the same way that raising a large family does: you realize just how little is truly under your control.
The study can be found here:
ReplyDeletehttp://homepages.uconn.edu/~leh06001/files/2312w/Carrel%20and%20West%202008.pdf
@CDP Thanks for the actual study, but horrors, adjuncts are raked through the coals AGAIN (sigh). I understand where they are coming from, but it just RANKLES. Very interesting study, though. I'd recommend that more administrators read it, but I'd be grouped with the less qualified, easy, beloved adjunct in the study rather than the reality.
ReplyDeleteWe did evals last week and I spent the next day clutching the side of my face to prevent my eyeball from exploding out of it (migraine). Connection? Perhaps.
ReplyDeleteDepartment chair emailed to say that I had a statistically significant number of students use the word "crazy" to describe me, although most mentioned that they meant it "in a good way."
Bring it, motherf*ckers.
ps: No, I do not know why my department chair doesn't have anything better to do at this time of the year than read course evaluations, but maybe he needed a laugh?
ReplyDelete