Re: Student Evaluations

["John S. Denker" <jsd@MONMOUTH.COM>]

Tim O'Donnell wrote:
>
....
> The
> biggest complaint I saw over and over was I taught
> "things" that were not tested. Am I wrong in doing that?

I would like to answer "of course you're not wrong" but
there's more to the story....

> Has higher education become "teach to the test" too or is
> this because these students are going into education and
> I am sure (at least in Ohio) that has become our
> educational motto.

One might hope that the purpose of the teaching/learing
process is that the students will learn something, and
that tests are only a mean to that end.

> I personally always appreciated
> opportunities to increase my educational/intellectual
> background - am I in the minority. Has education in
> general just become about GPA's? Any comments.

Student evaluations have to be respected, because the
students are "customers" and one should (to the extent
possible) satisfy the customers.  [Don't forget there
are other customers, including the parents and/or the
state, and since they pay the bills their needs must
be taken very seriously.]

You could take a poll.  Ask each of your students:
|    Is it your objective to learn something, or just
|    to pass the course and move on?

In fact, the student evaluation questionnaire should be
asking this question!

You might be amazed how many students are completely
up-front about it:  "I'm taking this course only because
it is the easiest way to satisfy such-and-such
requirement."

With students like that, you've got no way to motivate
them (except your scintillating charisma) and if they
give you motivations that only complain about material
not tested you should consider yourself very successful
indeed.

===================

Teaching physics isn't 100% physics.  It's maybe 10%
physics and 90% teaching, by which I mean the motivational,
pedagogical and psychological bits.  You can tell
them something like this:
*   You will be thoroughly tested and strictly judged
*   by real life.  The purpose of this course is to
*   prepare you for that.  The testing that goes on
*   within these walls means nothing compared to that.
*   Don't worry about the questions I'm going to ask
*   you.  Worry about the questions that your students
*   will ask you when you're out there working as a
*   teacher.  Worry about the questions your boss and
*   your customers will ask when you're out there working
*   in industry.  Worry about protecting your family's
*   health and finances against mountebanks and
*   politicians who will try to sell physically-impossible
*   remedies.  Don't think you are learning this stuff
*   as a favor to me;  learn it as a favor to yourself.
*   You're paying me to help you learn this stuff.  Let's
*   work together.  There's not enough time to cover
*   even 10% of what you need to know, so let's get started.

Furthermore, if these folks are "going into education"
you should explain to them the following:  Testing serves
many purposes, including
 -- Motivating the students
 -- Letting the teacher measure progress
 -- Letting others measure achievement
 -- et cetera

and *none* of these purposes requires that the tests
cover every topic that was taught.  Sampling does the
job nicely.

After explaining this, you can even post a sign-up
sheet:  Anybody who wants to sign up for extra tests
(so that every topic in the syllabus will be covered
in a test) is free to do so.  I'll bet nobody signs up!

But ... I'll bet they still make the same complaint
at the end of the term :-).  You'll have the comfort
of knowing their complaint is completely illogical,
but the complaint will still be there.

Oddball illogical complaints are guaranteed to show
up if the questionnaire is incomplete or poorly designed.
Remember, roughly half of the students are going to get
below-average grades.  Human nature dictates than many
of these will want to blame somebody for this.  There
are ways to improve the quesionnaire to deal with this,
but I won't go into it now.  Designing questionnaires
and intepreting the results is a very, very tricky
business, and it is rarely done right.

One obvious suggestion:  Solicit feedback during the
term.  Don't leave it all to the end.  For further
info, see
  http://uga.berkeley.edu/sled/bgd/teaching.html
and in particular
  http://uga.berkeley.edu/sled/bgd/feedback.html
and references therein.