Michael Monce reminds us about the correlation between low grades and poor
course evaluations. This has indeed bugged me for some time. The teachers
who grade easy and try to be the students' friend typically do get higher
teaching evaluations, and this can have all sorts of political and career
ramifications. On a chemistry-education list we recently discussed how
chemistry and physics grades tend to run lower than grades in other
disciplines and how this hurts science in several ways.
I do get static from time to time about science courses being too hard, and
I also sometimes get static when we have an extremely easy science prof who
gets excellent evaluations and then the dean wants to know why the rest of
us scientists can't get equally good evaluations. Even though we have
assessment exams that show students have learned less of the "standard
curriculum" from the easy prof, this does not impress some deans as much as
the student evaluations.
In 24 years I have experienced 6 different deans. Only one was outstanding
and a couple were downright terrible. These 6 deans each treated teaching
evaluations very differently. I would like to relay a couple quotations
from the outstanding dean.
"Students tend to think they have learned a lot if they get good grades.
They tend to think they have learned little when they receive low grades.
We know this is not necessarily true; in fact, the opposite might be true.
Therefore, as I read evaluations I also like to look at the class grades.
If the grades are higher than average I don't necessarily associate high
evaluations with excellent teaching."
Once, upon reading my evaluations, he wrote me a note that said, "I noticed
that several students commented you are a very demanding prof, but you are
fair. I think that ranks among the highest praise a professor can receive."
"A popular professor and a good professor are not necessarily the same
thing. Nineteen year old students are not often able to tell the
difference. Therefore I take teaching evaluations seriously, but not too
damn seriously."
As I try to follow the advice I wrote on my earlier post, and as I have
class average grades of C+, I am able to report that the numerical portion
of my teaching evaluations (where the students respond to questions with a
choice of five options ranging from unsatisfactory to outstanding) typically
run slightly above average, but only about 0.2 std.dev. above average. This
means I am not viewed as a problem prof, nor am I viewed as a popular prof.
But I have learned that the real evaluation comes much later, sometimes way
after the student has graduated. The outstanding dean was right, nineteen
year old students aren't prepared to make good assessments of teaching. I
have noticed that seniors looking for letters of recommendation come to me
even when they got a C in my class. That says something. When students
come back at homecoming or May Day they often seek me out to say hi and tell
me what they are doing. That says something. Now that we have e-mail I get
considerable e-mail from graduates, often just telling me what they're doing
these days. That says something.
Learn what you can from course evaluations, but don't get too hung up over
them. Cross your fingers that your department chair and dean will view them
this way also.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817