The controversial past, present, and future of student evaluations
By Debra A Trusty (University of Iowa)
In order to start this panel and provide some context to the issue of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs), this paper will discuss their evolution from the 1920s to today. In particular, I will investigate how something so seemingly innocent and good-natured has gained the ability to invoke strong emotions of anger, fear, and sadness. I will investigate the evolution of the types of questions asked, as well as the intended and actual uses of SETs over the years. This will allow us to better understand why we still need SETs and what merits we can find from them.
On the Constructive Use of the Student Evaluation Narrative
By Ryan Fowler (Franklin and Marshall College)
This year the faculty my university at has voted to move some of their long-term visiting faculty into more stable Teaching Professor (TP) positions. The process of applying to becoming a TP requires a set of student-evaluation-centered narratives based on previously taught courses. Since many TP faculty have never written a student-evaluation narrative, this conference paper will take a determined, specific form, including an evaluation of future data analysis.
Finding the Usefulness of Student Evaluations Even After Tenure
By Steven L Tuck (Miami University)
There are many documented problems with student evaluations, but it is also clear that they are not going away any time soon. For me, the question is what use can I make of these when my goal is not tenure or promotion, but improvements for the next time I teach this course in a semester or a year. In my situation (as for others) the key is encouraging written responses. In this presentation I discuss presenting the evaluation goal to students through an articulation of course components, particularly readings, in-class activities, formal and informal assessments.
Tough Love with Soft Gloves
By Svetla Slaveva-Griffin (Florida State University)
In this paper we want to probe the meaning of “Tough Love” in the classroom. We start with an attempt to define it and how it affects the instructor who uses this approach in the classroom. We ask what happens to our teaching evaluations and does this affect our own desire to pursue this approach or to give up using it? Then we examine the dynamic of using this approach in the classroom and talk about the students’ point of view as they respond to the instructor’s position.
Hurts So Good?: Evaluation and Consolation
By Sophie Mills (University of North Carolina, Asheville)
Many of us may slightly dread the end of semester when we know that students are being encouraged to rate us as…what? Teachers, parents, entertainers, psychiatrists, fashion models, human beings? When the completed ratings reach our inboxes, we are perhaps nervous, and then hurt or even angry at some of what we read. One unfavourable comment can obscure twenty favourable ones, and a preponderance of unflattering comments can be crushing, whether we are new or grizzled veterans.
Using Critical Self-Evaluations to be a Better Instructor
By E. Del Chrol (Marshall University)
(Prof. Chrol apologizes for the earlier version of the title, which has now been updated. The title change will be addressed in the session)
This paper will serve as a defensive complement and bridge between the papers on working with administration to create an assessment narrative and on how to improve pedagogy. It will also highlight some of the issues raised in the past, present and future of Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs) that heads the panel that relate to protecting instructors in relation administration, students as well as themselves.