Job Discussion Forums

[samizinha]

I was wondering how many other teachers out there have formal assessments given by their students. If you do, how do you feel about them? Should these assessments dictate whether you get to come back to your job, or should they only be used as a way to give you annonomous advice?
Un saludo, Sami

[Guy Courchesne]

Generally speaking, at any private language school that runs on the money paid by students, such assessments are the life and death of your job.

I only cover substitute classes these days, but I'll still have to get feedback through the boss on how Ive done and make changes accordingly.

[thelmadatter]

grrr....

While in theory I agree that students should give feedback on their classes, evaluation solely thru student evals most times is at best laziness on the part of admin and a recipe for abuse in the worst case scenarios.

While in private language schools, with primarily adults who pay their own tuition (or is being paid by the boss perhaps), I suppose these can be sufficient. But the bulk of my experience is with college students (and some recently with high school). In almost all these cases, these students are NOT footing the bill (mom and dad are), so they have little in the way of a sense of win/lose unless said student has good parents. However, the ones with good parents dont usually have problems in class.

In cases where your job hangs partially or fully on student evals and you have students (and parents) who feel they have paid for a passing grade... well thats a recipe for disaster. The pressure to be "nice" and make the class requirements easier is very strong. Even more so when all admin cares about is retention and/or growing the student population. (which Tec was trying to do - at a 10% per year rate no less! - until they loss their ranking in the top 5 schools in Latin America. You cant be the "Harvard of Latin America" and try to pass through a bunch of people who are not prepared for the work.

Its not just a problem in Mexico. My first job teaching English Comp 101 at a community college was much worse. ANYTHING written by students on the evals were taken as gospel and it was your complete eval. Blech. At least at the U of Arizona they took into account the student's expected grade and someone came in to check on you once in a while.

[ls650]

It's never been a problem for me - I always get positive comments.

In my former language school the comments all tended to be along the lines of "LS650 is a kind teacher but he should play more games."

However, at the university level I get feedback that is actually helpful, with comments about emphasizing this area or that technique more in class.

[jfurgers]

Here at the Community College where I teach in Texas the evals don't seem to matter all that much to the administrators. It would have to be VERY bad before anyone would say anything.
One thing to remember about evals is that it's coming from people who have never taught anything a day in their life. I'm not saying a teacher shouldn't take them serious and try to make some adjustments, I am saying that they shouldn't be taken too personal since they're coming from people who most likely have never taught anything. It's kind of like asking passengers on a flight to fill out an eval on how well you think the pilot did.
Most passengers know nothing about how to fly a plane.

John

[Ben Round de Bloc]

Where I teach, students do an evaluation near the end of each semester. It's a one-page list of statements (rated on a 5-point scale between excellent and very poor) divided into sections: Teacher, Program, Facilities, and Materials/Textbook along with a place to write comments. The currently used evaluation form leaves something to be desired, in my opinion, but it's much better than the previously used one. Anyone without a graduate degree in education would've been hard-pressed to understand all the terminology on that 4-page evaluation form, which was replaced by the current one a few years ago. The evaluations are used by teachers for self-improvement, by the department head to help justify certain budget requests, and possibly by administration, as only one factor of many, to determine which teachers are/aren't offered contracts for the following semester.

[AjarnErnes]

At the 3 schools I've worked at here in Thailand. I was given a bonus of up to 2 months salary partially based on STUDENT evaluations of me as a teacher.

Without a doubt, an incentive to find a good balance between playing games and doing the workbook.

ajarn ernest

[Cdaniels]

[thelmadatter]

I always kid about bringing pizza on eval day... never had the balls to actually DO it tho....

[MELEE]

The Admin at my uni doesn't trust the students ablity to give valid evaluations. They think the students will just give positive feedback to the teachers who are "buena onda". They are partially right, but I think students can easily be taught how to make valid evaluations and that skill will serve them all their lives, actually a skill Mexicans (or anyone really) desparately need, but that the PRI has been sucessful at keeping down, and therefore keeping the masses in their place. Something that the US Republican Party seems to have picked up on in the last decade!

Thelma, tell your big bosses to look out, we've beat ITESM (and all the unis in Mexico) in a national computer programing contest the last two years!

[PlayadelSoul]

We do monthly student evals, and I find them very helpful. It is easy to weed out the evals that the students did not take seriously, and to look for patterns. If, for example, more than a few students say that the teacher is late starting class, that is a cue to me to do a spot check. I also know who is taking the time to help students after class, and who is going through the motions.

By no means do I use this as the sole determining factor to evaluate teachers. They are helpful, however, and they allow the students to vent.