Today was the last day of Fall semester here at large southeast university, and I gave out my course evaluations. I happen to teach a required course that students don't typically love, and actually if they had their druthers, would NOT take it. Students tend to lash out on student evaluations, and contrary to the faculty handbook, that is the ONLY way I am evaluated when it comes to teaching which is 40% of my job. So I am at the mercy of 33 twenty somethings...I hope I sufficiently dazzled them today.
Also, I don't even get the results of said evaluations for months, and the anxiety is killer. Plus, I haven't gotten mine back from the summer yet. Not very condusive to using the feedback, if you don't ever. get. the. feedback.
This is a part of my job that both frustrates and crushes me. Students have done so well on their professional exam (the part I am responsible for), and their employers talk about how awesome they are at the stuff I taught them, yet all I get evaluated on is whether they were more inclined to bubble in a 4 as opposed to a 3 today.
I am scared because these last two semesters are the last two that go in my tenure packet...and I have NO idea where I stand. UGH.
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8 comments:
Ugh. Sorry. That is stressful. I would hope that they would take into account the employer feedback.
I think you want people to think you work at LSU because you LOVE it Large Southeast University=LSU
Uck, Yack, Blech. I hadn't even noticed that those letters worked out that way...
what? 40% of your performance eval is based on the students feedback??? seriously? that seems incredibly...bogus. what if they had a bad day or were just pissed at your or something? that's an awful lot of importance given to random evaluations.
Oh, Kerfuffle, I love you. I know, it seems incredibly hard to believe. I was told after my first semester that it was all about "managing perceptions". Students rallied to get me fired because I canceled class when they were unprepared for group presentations, they said it was unprofessional. Other professors have canceled final exams, changed them to take home, all bowing to student pressures to make sure evals are good. This is the part of my job at my school that I despise. It makes me nutball.
is this a NEW college thing or just your school? granted, i graduated college in 1990, but i don't ever remember having the chance to GRADE my profs. that is insane. i would think that would have A LOT of profs kissing butts and degrade the quality of the education.
This is amazing to me. As someone who has been taking college level classes and still not graduating for literally... well... decades, and dutifully filling out a course evaluation for every course I took, I still had no idea that any college would make my and my classmates' opinions weight that heavily. Like others already said, what if someone is having a bad day or is just a vindictive childish a-hole? Should that affect someone's entire career??
It isn't the University, or even the College it is my Department...I got my undergrad from the same school and have been told by professors that taught me they would NEVER give the current students the same exams/projects/etc. that we were given due to how slack we have gotten because we are "afraid". My boss has apologized and said that every single person does NOT want to be evaluated by the evals, but yet, that is how everyone evaluates others. (I am evaluated by committee.)
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