I got course evaluations from last semester, and there is no middle ground. They love me or hate. I got more good reviews than bad, but the bad ones were really bad. And the good ones were really good. It's weird. Several of them wrote that this was their favorite class, that they absolutely loved it, lots of exclamation points and capital letters. But one student wrote that my comments on her paper made her feel stupid and destroyed any confidence she had in writing. She (I'm guessing about who it was) suggested that I write, "This is good but you need to make improvements here," instead of just pointing out all the bad parts. Another student said he learned nothing at all and that it was three hours of tuition thrown out the window. Harsh. Some of them mentioned that they didn't realize the class would have so much online work when they registered. I have remedied that problem for summer and fall, and the online component is listed in the course schedule. (But there will be some who still don't get it.)
It's not easy trying to figure out what to do with class evaluations every semester. This one is particularly difficult because the responses are so polar. Was it really that good AND that bad? I think that I can soften up my comments on papers. Students always think I grade too hard, but my colleagues get that comment a lot, too. And many teachers inflate grades, which affects students' expectations. I am confident in my grading, but I'm going to look back on the comments I wrote on student papers and consider the tone. Maybe I'll see something in hindsight.
A few questions for the blogosphere:
Is it important to find good things to say about every student paper, even if it is seriously flawed?
How do I deal with evaluations that are so polarized?
Should I pay to check myself out on Pick-a-Prof or will that do more harm than good?
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13 comments:
My opinion is that people need criticism if their paper is seriously flawed. Unfortunately there are the few that can not handle the "harsh" words and others that are open to it. I don't think a college student deserves sugar-coated grading. College isn't grade school where they won't allow teachers to use red pens because its too mean/aggressive and only green is allowed for grading because its not so full of temper.
always include positive comments. and sometimes...it's *really* hard to think of anything. I also tend to close my final comments at the end of the paper with the positive. "Change this, change this, this was terrible and you need to fix it. Good job on X." I also sign my name to the comments, so they know it's me, a real person talking to them.
as for evals....i don't know. I always have one or two that really hate me.
Have you looked at the DVD "Take 20" from Bedford/St. Martin’s? It's amazing and suggests many articles and such that address the struggles of teaching writing that we deal with every single semester without fail. It's worth watching. You can get it for free as an instructor from the pub.
The best advice I've ever gotten about commenting on student writing boils down to these two points:
1) open by reflecting back what you think the paper is arguing; and
2) sandwich bad news (in other words, start positive, then deliver the bad stuff, then end with hope).
When a paper is really bad, I talk about how "promising" the ideas are and focus mostly on the ongoing issues, offering advice for how to address them in the next paper.
Having read a LOT of other people's evaluations over the years (and some of the research on course evaluations), polarized evals. mean that students by and large had deeply personal responses to you: you're probably quite charismatic, which means that they either respond well to that charisma or it leaves them cold. I think that that's a strength, but it means that you need to think about reaching the students who you don't naturally connect with, if that makes sense. I'd focus on that rather than the specific negative things the haters have said.
And -- NO!!! -- don't pay to look yourself up on any of those things. That way madness lies.
I checked myself out on ratemyprof.com and it really hurt my feelings. Official evaluations are enough so I say avoid the sites...
As for providing some good comments, I think there is some benefit to that. I think students shut down after a certain number of bad comments and that pointing out what little things are good will show them what habits to continue... I think it is worth even the small positive comments to offset the bad ones a little bit.
I use a printed grading rubric with every assignment (weekly lab writing assignments), and this really helps with pointing out good and bad in a systematic way. It keeps me from "bleeding" all over their papers because I have clear criteria that they are aware of before the assignment is submitted by which I can analyze their work. Just a thought for you.
Don't let evaluations get you down. Try to learn from them. Keep your chin up!
I always try to do the sandwich thing, opening with positive, then substantial comments, then close with something positive. My generic positive opening is "You've got a lot of good material here", hee! Or maybe "It's clear you've put a lot of work into this" (neither of these are necessarily always true, but I do like to acknowledge that they've done something!). But I should say that I do it because I had a graduate advisor who notoriously NEVER gives praise - she only ever points out what's wrong, and I never encountered anything quite so demoralizing. I was convinced she thought I was an irredeemable idiot (still am partly convinced of this, too!). I don't think it's necessary to sugar coat, but I don't like to demoralize, either. (Not saying that you did, though!)
I can usually pull this off if someone has written a C or above paper - though there are obviously more substantial negative comments in the C range. But if you hit the D range, then they get the stern "There are significant problems with this paper" comments!
Sometimes I feel more inclined to skip the positive encouragement when the student is someone who seems to have a bad attitude in class, but occasionally I've found out after the fact that the bad attitude masks complete fear/insecurity, so I try to approach all the papers the same way.
Do NOT look at Pick-a-prof. The purpose is not objective critique, but sharing of venom or tipping others off to an easy teacher. This is the lazy way to pick a class, not a serious student's venue for critique. There may be exceptions, but you will be more likely to find your "waste of time" students than the ones whose opinions you value.
As for the evals, there are so many variables to consider. You might take the specific criticism seriously, but not too seriously. So for example, be conscious of your efforts to include positive critiques--not to sugar-coat, but to encourage, to give the student something to hold onto. Unless they're that abysmally bad--and in an advanced comp, you would expect a certain level of proficiency. But I'm sure you do that anyway!! Likely she thought she had done something well that she had not done well, or tended to focus more on your constructive critiques, which to her felt too negative. Remember that these students are not well trained in REAL writing in high school. This may be the first indication she's had that she was not doing everything right--in which case, you have done her a favor!
Take heart!
I agree with others here, the pick a prof and rate my... sites are full of cheap parting shots. However, I get a kick out of my worst reviews because half the words are misspelled. I'm so looking forward to moving from a cc to a small U this fall
Looks to me like you take criticism better that some students-- good for you! Some students see the evals as a joke and so do some faculty and that taints the process for the rest of us.
The student that thought you were harsh might be right, that's an easy fix remind yourself to start with the positive and go from there. That doesn't help much for those truly horrible papers. What I do with the really bad ones is turn the assessment back on them by asking what they were trying to accomplish relative to the assignment.
The student that "didn't learn a thing" may have come to the class with prior knowledge; good for him/her hope they got an A...
Hmmm, I like this post and all the comments as well. I have a hard time with evaluations. I know I should have been reading them right after the course was over, but it was always too hard on me. I feel really hurt and insecure by them, it's terrible. When I looked at them for last year's job search, I found several good ones, but quite a few bad ones too. I like all the advice that you received. I also have a hard time to point out the positives in a paper that's clearly bad.
Even for professionals, the poop sandwich method of feedback can be helpful. The recipe is as follows:
Something you liked (nice typeface?) aka the bread
All the stuff that needs fixing aka the poop
Either something else you liked or your optimism about how the paper will benefit from revision, if that is something you allow, aka the other bread.
Often, the praise, even if faint, is required in order to keep them reading through the poop.
People tend to be great teachers for the students who are most like they were as students--and I think it's true that one of the challenges of teaching is to be great for the ones who are nothing like you were. Polarized evaluations probably reflect that. I know I can only change so much about who I am as a teacher so my strategy for dealing with different learning styles and different expectations is to give all students a map for successfully navigating my class--my effort to make concrete what is transparent about me and/or my course from the students' perspectives. You still won't be able to please everybody, but at least there is no [well, less] animosity from the students who just had different expectations or assumptions about how to be successful in your course. In the least, it demonstrates to the class that you recognize people are coming from different places and while you can't always accommodate everybody you are at least trying to let them know where you're coming from.
It's interesting to think about how to comment on poor work. I used to struggle with this more, but for me it came down to what my ultimate objectives were. For example, I used to feel strongly that my job was to be a teacher, not an entertainer because it was college and not everything that is important for an educated person to know is always fun. But in the end, if my students weren't learning because they were bored by my presentation style then I hadn't really accomplished my goal of educating them. I think if you want students to learn and improve from your critiques, you need to present them in a way that makes students open to receiving those critiques from you. Ultimately, their grade reflects your assessment of their work. But your comments can guide how they react to your assessment. Think of your course evaluations. Are you more likely to try to improve your teaching methods based on the all negative comments of a student who seems [from your perspective] to be ranting, or the student who says something like, "It's clear she puts a lot of thought into her lectures, but she would be more effective if she considered X, Y and Z next time" ??? Even in this small thread of comments, you can tell more people are hurt by and dismiss purely negative course evaluations than actually change or improve their teaching because of them. A little validation goes a long way for everybody. And it is clear from your post that you are an effective and conscientious teacher. Hang in there!
Several others have already recommended the "sandwich" approach I learned as a TA, which seems to work reasonably well.
As an example: "nice choice of font! Unfortunately you wrote on the wrong book. Good work on nearly making the required word count!" ...or something like that.
I admit that I have stopped reading evaluations. Somehow I never hear the good ones, and then I obsess about the bad ones for days.
Oh, and stay away from ratemyprof.com; wildly polarized evaluations, and usually from disaffected students; you'll gain no useful information.
I have to agree with a lot of what's been said. I always leave some good feedback with the bad. And I *try* not to take evals personally. It helps when you have five people saying they HATE something specific and five saying they loved the same thing. I always bring that sort of thing up in class so that students know it's not possible to please everyone and it's better to try to work as a team to come up with strategies to help everyone get something out of the class.
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