Here are some more thoughts on teaching evaluations and changing to an
inquiry based teaching environment.
The relationship between student evaluations and teaching effectiveness is
surely complex. There is probably a lot of research on whether the
two are correlated, but I have not had time to discover it. I am going
to state some speculative hypotheses anyway.
Student evaluations are primarily a measure of student comfort level.
iA
If you teach in an institution where students are pretty happy with the
way things are, and you are using the dominant teaching paradigm of your
institution in a "reasonably successfull" way (students are happy) then
any change you make which is significantly different from that paradigm
is likely to cause your evaluations to go down.
I think this is the situation that I have found myself in. I work in a
small college dedicated to teaching where students are really satisfied
with the way things are. The impetus to change my teaching is coming
from myself. I am not happy with the level of achievement and am trying
to use the results of educational research to make real improvements in
what students are accomplishing. Unfortunately, the changes do run
counter to the prevailing paradigm. Maybe it is not so surprising that my
evaluations have suffered.
On the other hand, if you teach in a university where the faculty are not
very closely connected with the students, often the case at research oriented
institutions, and you make a change which requires greater involvement of
the faculty with students, as inquiry based teaching does, then students
will perceive this very positively, even if, perhaps because, the change
runs counter to the prevailing paradigm.
Faculty contemplating major changes in the teaching of a course should
probably seek the support of administration before making the change. Explore
some of these issues with them.
Finally, I have some evidence that the decline in my evaluations is temporary.
So the issue may just be one of temporary discomfort.
Chris Wentworth
Department of Physics
Doane College
Crete, NE 68333-2496
402-826-8257 (O)
402-826-8199 (FAX)
cwentworth@doane.edu (Internet)
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This strikes very close to home. I have also been trying to move my
department in this direction, against some considerable resistance,
and have just returned from the Laws Workshop Physics seminar as part
of the grand plan. Lately at my institution tenure decisions have
tended to pivot on student evaluations so these responses lead to
some trepidation.
....
Paul J. Camp "The Beauty of the Universe
Assistant Professor of Physics consists not only of unity
Coastal Carolina University in variety but also of
Conway, SC 29526 variety in unity.
pjcamp@csd1.coastal.edu --Umberto Eco
pjcamp@worldnet.att.org The Name of the Rose
(803)349-2227
fax: (803)349-2926