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BUBBLING UP: Students rate
such things as instructor clarity and course content
on scannable forms.
Rod Searcey |
“They rip open the
envelopes and say, ‘Oh my God, what happened?’
”
That’s psychology professor Russell Fernald’s
summary of the faculty reactions he’s seen to
course evaluation forms. But Fernald, who headed a committee
that revised the forms in 1996, thinks there’s
a lot to be gleaned from them.
“If you really want to learn what students think,
you have to indicate that you’re taking it seriously,
and give them time to do it, and show them it is important
to you,” says the director of the human biology
program. “And when students feel empowered like
that, they’re not going to write junky stuff.”
Student evaluations typically are used in three ways.
They can help improve teaching and help students choose
courses, and they also are included in faculty files
for promotion and tenure decisions. “I’ve
heard students question whether the evaluations really
have any impact on promotion and tenure decisions because
they have the view that, ‘Here’s this tenured
professor, and he’s really terrible,’”
says registrar Roger Printup. “So I’m pleased
that they actually are used.”
Fernald does receive the occasional content-free response,
such as “This is the man!” or “Dresses
nicely,” from his students. But he argues that
the revised forms are an improvement over the previous
version that, he says, “asked, basically, ‘Did
the faculty member show up?’ and had virtually
no diagnostic information.”
Implemented in the 1996-97 academic year, the course
evaluations have fill-in-the-bubble categories to rate
an instructor’s clarity, ability to engage students,
interaction with students and course content on a five-point
scale. Students can also write extensive comments about
textbooks, assignments and exams, plus suggestions for
overall improvement. A student from each class collects
the forms and delivers them to the registrar’s
office, where they’re scanned and then given to
the faculty member—but not until grades have been
submitted. A statistical summary goes to the instructor’s
department chair or program director, and to the appropriate
dean. And the ASSU receives a tear-off commentary to
use in its online course guide.
Faculty also receive a summary sheet that shows their
scores in relation to other faculty in their school.
“If the mean course evaluation for social sciences
is 4.0, and their overall evaluation is 3.5, it helps
to put it in some kind of context,” Printup says.
Those concerned about their scores can seek assistance
at the Center for Teaching and Learning. “Part
of the problem is that some faculty see giving a lecture
as assembling all the essential information, and they
don’t try to turn a lecture into a coherent narrative,”
says center director Michele Marincovich, ’68.
“But even in science and engineering you need
some kind of narrative structure, to make it interesting
and clear.”
One popular instructor, associate professor of art
history and of classics Jody Maxmin, encourages her
students to be “brutally honest and as negative
as they want to be.” She hands out evaluation
forms before Dead Week so students can take them back
to their dorms and spend time with the open-ended questions.
“I tell them to think about suggestions that will
help people who take the class in the future,”
Maxmin says. Then she adds a caveat: “Of course,
the way you stay in touch with students in the 21st
century and know whether a course is addressing their
interests and needs is not by handing out these forms.
You stay in touch with students in office hours and
by e-mail.”
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