This being the end of the semester, there is a lot going on. Papers, exams and of course, student evaluations. This is the one time in the semester that I wonder, am I supposed to be a teacher or a job-seeker? Should I have played it safe all year, granting the students’ every wish and/or being an entertainer rather than an instructor? Or is it more important that they look back on my class as a learning experience (though difficult) even if it means that they give me bad evaluations now?
As all of you know, good student evaluations are essential for tenure. This is especially true for small colleges and for Millersville University where I will be teaching next year. Small colleges give the same importance to student evaluations that large research institutions give to publications. This leads to a sort of tyranny of the students. Teachers, the ones without tenure anyway, feel like the students should like them and like their classes. Pleasing the students takes the upper hand. The problem is that students often like a class when it is “fun.” And not only do I find it difficult to make Plato or the Presidency “fun” but I actually hate doing it. I feel like I am cheapening the material and playing the fool – maybe a Shakespearean “wise fool” but a fool nonetheless. A professor is supposed to teach, not entertain.
The other problem with student evaluations is grades. Students who get good grades tend to be the ones that like the class (they also tend to be the ones that work hard and listen and come to class) while those who get lower grades tend to dislike it. Now I have become a much easier grader in the past year but I am still not at a B average and therefore, you can imagine the comments I am prone to getting.
This is why I hate evaluations. I never get terrible ones but they are never glowing. Rather, I get a few students (very few) who will love the class (I even had 2 students change their majors to PT) but the rest just seem to tolerate it. And this bothers me. I am not trying to be nice or generous in class, I am trying to teach. I want them to learn. Which means I want students to be actively engaged with the material, to know, to be curious, to analyze, to discuss. Yet, most students seem to feel that a class should not be demanding; they do not want to be held to a higher standard. And this clearly impacts the evaluations.
Am I wrong? Should classes be fun? Should this be my goal? More importantly, to what extent can you combine fun with teaching and learning? What do you do to achieve this?
As I see it, there are a few ways in which people can respond to this post:
a. I am wrong and the material can be made fun, exciting and accessible while students are held to high standards.
b. Professors should be professors. They should teach as they think best without worrying about the impact on their evaluations. They should be professors, not a used car salesman.
c. Evaluations are not the be-all, end-all of tenure and therefore, teaching considerations should be balanced with tenure considerations.
What do you think? Any suggestions or thoughts on this conundrum?
2 comments:
As one of my colleagues says re evals, "If nobody has anything bad to say about you, you must be doing something wrong."
Corey had one bad evaluation last semester but the rest were fine. I agree with Jill that you're never going to please everyone. As to your approach, your goal is to have them learn, not for them to have fun. Maybe you can think about how best you can get them to learn. Students have different learning styles so maybe it's important to use different approaches. Corey likes to use his visual slides and incorporate pop cultural references.
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