Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Swampfox10mm]

Finals are almost over and I was speaking with a friend about student reviews of teachers at the university level.

Now for a scenario:

Imagine that your job working for a university were mostly based on student reviews of your classes. Now imagine that you were ranked against all other teachers and could see your standing compared to all teachers in your department, as well as the school.

Now, imagine that a few of the recent hires, concerned about rankings, went so far as to buy food to feed their classes on the last day of school (admitting they did it to influence their review scores). Would you feel pressured to do the same?

Please voice your opinions on the subject of foreign teachers buying and baking food items in order to influence scores. I see it getting out of hand because teachers are now feeling the need to have teacher-paid pizza parties to make students happy.

[Ramen]

[Stout]

10-4 on that. Buying food, making the tests easy, playing games at the expense of shoring up glaring deficiencies, praising students for sub-par efforts, you name it, it's all part of the I'm popluar so sign me up for next year campaign. If your uni's adminstrators fall for that and base their decisions on who is most 'sparkling', best to interview somewhere else.

[Fishead soup]

Any school that permits such behavour is not worth working for. Find work elswhere.

[edwardcatflap]

I thought all universities had student evaluations

[Swampfox10mm]

[edwardcatflap]

[Swampfox10mm]

[thegadfly]

[nathanrutledge]

[Unposter]

Sorry, if I take a more practical point of view on this but...

Its too late. If you had a party now, you would look like a follower and a panderer. The students may even think that you were worried about your evaluation and they could assume that you feel guilty about something. I think it could lower your student evaluation score.

That said, I think you need to do what comes naturally to you. Every teacher connects with their students differently and students, too, connect with their teachers differently. I also would not automatically dismiss listening to what your students want. Of course, you may not want to give them everything they want. Real teaching wisdon comes with knowing when to indulge and when to say, "no."

I think in a general sort of way, student evaluations can be helpful. I would look for patterns. If there is a real drop in over all score or in a particular question, then I would look into it. But, I would never assume even a one-tenth point difference means that one teacher is better than another.

If you feel you have really done everything you can for your students, I wouldn't worry about it. If you feel you could have done something better, please try to do it next time. In between, there is nothing to do but try to get better.

[yoja]

I just wanted to add that I was *seriously* disappointed to find there was absolutely no mention of polygamy, homosexuality, bestiality, or any other sexual 'perversion' on this thread.

[Mr. Peabody]

I've heard of teachers who promise A+ to their students after the final exam, even though grading is on a curve. Cheaper than pizza, same result.

[Stout]

[PatrickGHBusan]