🚀 go-pugleaf

I have been reading the evaluation debate with some interest -- but one thing
seems to me to be conspicuously absent, and that's any mention of the climate
in the institution, as regards what evals are FOR. I have been teaching for
over 11 years, and have been extensively evaluated in that time, and this in
four or five different institutions. Despite somebody's observation that those
who squawk about evals are mostly those who have negative ones, let me say
that I have never had a poor evaluation (I mean, from a class; naturally
everyone has the odd one from individual students) and I am one of those who
has been yelling about the process for a long time. My beef is partly the
same as Barbara's -- that there's a limit to what students can legitimately
say about the quality of the teaching, not only because of limitations in
their knowledge of the subject matter, but also because of (sometimes) a
limitation in their understanding of what a college/university prof is supposed
to do, compared to their only other experience of teachers, that being in
high school. I'm sorry now not to remember whose suggestion it was, but I
liked the survey of the graduating seniors as a method of collecting evals --
it's much less adversarial.

Which returns me to my original point, which is that in some institutions --
and I am sad to say that I have very much noticed this trend here at the
University of Washington -- evaluations are perceived by students as a chance
to exact revenge on somebody you don't like. ANd this doesn't seem to be
limited to only the poor or unmotivated students either. I currently work with
a large group of highly motivated seniors and juniors in a largely volunteer
program (Freshman Interest Group peer advisors). We discussed evals in one of
our training meetings because they were to be evaluated by their seminar
groups (each group is approx. 22 first year students) and were expressing
their feelings about that and about evals in general. I was astounded to hear
how these kids -- all of them chosen for our program because they are very
good students and capable in their interpersonal interactions -- saw the
evals as a chance to take potshots at instructors they didn't like, for what-
ever reason. I had sensed that there was such an atmosphere here, and have
even had one or two such students in classes I've taught, but the vehemence
of it surprised me. ANd though I'd like to agree that seniors or even grad
students are above such things, I have to say that it's very easy for students
at all levels to forget that there is a human being on the other end of the
interaction who is likely to be very hurt by nasty comments (I am not talking
about constructive, genuinely thoughtful criticism here). I saw a particularly
vicious savaging of one of my graduate professors here by a group of malconten-
ted graduate students who openly discussed the responses they were putting
on an evaluation form, egging each other on and envisioning with great relish
the instructor's response to what they were writing. THis was a very capable,
organized, thorough teacher who is very generous with his/her time to every
student in the class (or indeed, in the program). I found the whole scene
very disturbing, particularly since it came from a group who were teaching for
the first time themselves, and who would therefore presumably be able to have
some insight into what it's like to be the one at the front of the room.

As you can imagine, I have lots to say on this issue, and have thought about
it a lot. (I taught for 4 years at an institution that I'm told is used by
the University of Alberta's course in measurement and evaluation as an example
of overkill in evaluations..... we were MASSIVELY evaluated, and I'm not
convinced that all of it was necessary). Anyway.... for now, enough!
I'm interested in whether others have sensed/experienced a similar adversarial
climate at their schools.

Jen

Jennifer MacLennan
jmaclenn@milton.u.washington.edu