...or do you at least THINK you are?
I recently heard on CNN that 96% of college professors think they are above average teachers.
Ha, I thought. I know I am above average.
But based on what? I have student evaluations and peer evaluations that say I am above average. But how do I *know* that I am above average if I don't get to see others' evaluations?
How do you know an above average prof from an average prof? Or (gulp!) a below average professor?
7 comments:
The most senior faculty member in my department (who is also on the departmental personnel committee and reads everybody's evaluations as part of her duties) told me that never in her entire career has she seen evaluations that would be as positive and glowing as mine.
This is a colleague who really dislikes me, too.
In my department, they do the statistics on all profs, and there are department averages for some 10 categories as well as overall popularity. About 2-3 months after a semester is over and the statistics on everyone's evals is done, I get back my own evals and numbers as well as the department statistics sheets. So you can really see what the average is and whether you are above or below.
I think I am pretty good. I always have scores above average and this year I also received two teaching awards; a college-level award (I mentioned it in a post some weeks ago) and quite recently another one, a students' choice award (students vote directly for their favorite instructor in their major dept). [One of my grad students said that I got both an Oscar and a People's Choice Award in the same semester. :-) ] I am particularly proud of the students' choice award, because I usually teach an undergrad course that's notorious for being very hard... The fact that they don't hate me with a vengeance means I must be doing something right.
Man, do I sound smug.
Call me an idealist, but I don't believe it matters how you are doing with respect to other professors--I think what matters is if you are teaching in a way that students can understand.
After all, if everyone in the department was a fantastic teacher, even a very good prof might be "below average"--but might still be very, very good at getting students to understand their subject.
Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact that you unequivocally equated good evals with being a good teacher (and, by extension, above average evals = above average teacher)??
I agree, evaluations are controlled by many other things than good teaching. And one person's excellent teacher is another's boring old bossyboots. My comment got a bit long... so I posted over at my place instead, here.
I can usually gauge that I'm doing a good job if:
1. On a large-ish lecture course I get lots of questions during lecture. Bored or utterly confused student never ask questions during class.
2. Lots of people show up to office hours with elaborate questions and what-ifs about the material. I enjoy office hours the most 'cause I get to pull out my pencil and paper and go over the concepts. Some students have told me after graduating that they still have some of my little sketches.
3. Students send you unsolicited emails with scientific papers they found and wanted to get my take on them.
4. After the term is over students send you emails thanking you for the course.
Does this always happen? Not always, but when it does it's nice.
my college has graciously quantified by awesomeness for me.
still and all, as has been noted in quite a few studies, student evals rarely correlated with actual learning or your know quality of teaching.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/college-inc/2010/06/study_high-rated_professors_ar.html
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