A Useful Diagnostic Tool: On Evaluations (cont.)
My experience departs markedly from that of the other good folk who
have commented on student evaluations. My department permits me the
latitude to design my own instrument. All of the questions I pose are
open ended, and they have all, at various times over the years,
provided me with good feedback. I use them to get suggestions how to
improve my lectures, to find out which assignments they thought they
learned most from, which books they felt they understood and which
not, which rubrics were helpful to them and which not, and so on.
I ask my students not just to answer the question posed, but also to
explain why they think as they do. I have received generous feedback
from them over the years, and have implemented many of the suggestions
that they have offered. I have found this feedback invaluable in
fine-tuning my teaching. I am, simply put, a better teacher because of
the useful commentary and criticism I have received from my students.
The notion, put forth by one recent commentator, that my students lack
the competence to judge my performance, is ludicrous. They are, if
anything, more finely aware of multimedia communication, and more
sophisticated at some of the modes of communication I use in my
classes, than I am. I would not trust them to judge my overall value
as a scholar and an intellectual, but I emphatically do trust them to
be able to make discriminating judgments about performance. This is
especially true of lectures before large numbers of students, which
certainly have a strong performative element to them. Student
evaluations are a diagnostic tool, and they have their weaknesses.
They should not be the sole instrument on which I rely to improve my
teaching. But the notion that they have no value at all is silly.
I see lots of my colleagues who get defensive about their student's
criticisms. It stings to have some thoughtless 19 year old tell us
they think we are lacking, especially given that most of us work quite
hard at our jobs. But we should not take their criticisms at face
value. They are well worth considering, it seems to me, if your agenda
in reading them is to figure out what you are doing right, and what
you might wish to improve. I do not think they provide the sole basis
on which I work to improve my teaching, but without them, I would be
unable to fine-tune my pedagogy anywhere near as effectively as I have
been able to do.
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o Some Advice For Professor Pansy. RYS Readers Rally...
o Another Word on Portfolios and Grades.
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o Arrogant Alvin Gets A Little Smackdown. Maybe He C...
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o Another Newbie Asks This Week's Big Thirsty!
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o Professor Project Offers a Reply to Spreadsheet St...
o Enjoy the Flava Of Some Hot Links.
o On Familiarity and Academic Viability. (One of Our...
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o Where the Moderators Lose Their Minds and Give Up ...
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o Marshall the Manipulator.
o Thirsty Replies for a Thirsty Nation.
+ |> January (87)
o An Early Reply To This Morning's Big Thirsty - Wha...
o The Big Thirsty - What Else Could You Do?
o Lessons on Hubris, and On Dissing the Mighty RYS W...
o Job Season Is Making Some Folks Crack.
o The Hoodie Rocks Like a Mofu!
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o Wud It Be Ok if U Got Lost? One More Student We Ha...
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o One of Our Readers Puts Aside Sunday Dinner In Ord...
o Pocket Protector Phil Tells Us What's Wrong with t...
o Smackdown for Sybil.
o Beowulf vs. the Engineers and Everyone Else Who Cr...
o Sybil from Saskatoon Is Searching for Some School ...
o Academic Haiku Friday.
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