Instructor's Teaching Evaluation
There have been several confusions as to how online instructors should be evaluated to determine instructional effectiveness. Among the reason is the fact that students are not fully participating on such evaluations. Should institutions make student/instructor evaluation mandatory and as a part of their grade for the course?
Dr. Francis,
That is up to the institution. I believe evaluations can be useful tools to help an instructor adjust their course to better reach their students. However, I have also seen the negative side of evaluations when students are angry with a challenging instructor and mark them poorly on evaluations because of the rigor of the course. Instead of requiring completed evaluations as part of their grade, it might make more sense to require them BEFORE they can get their posted grade for the course. If they check the system for their grade, they get a message with a link to the evaluation they have to complete before they can see their final recorded grade.
Herbert Brown III
As a Quality arena practitioner and educator, I use, as an evaluation of the students learning of the concepts I teach, the observation of the student's behavior; whether the student really undrstands the concept and if the student uses the concept correctly and in appropriate situations. To do this generally requres some temporal follow-up and communication with the student and the student's colleagues or supervisors. In the case of e-learning, what avenues can an instructor use to collect information about the studets use of the concepts -- the true measure of learning?
Herschel,
In a non-work based situation, you can use tools such as Case studies, essays, real-world design projects that incorporate the concepts and require students to demonstrate the concepts, their understanding of the concepts, and their proper application of the concepts. If the concepts require physical demonstration, recorded videos by the students works well. Almost every student has a video camera or access to one (e.g. cell phones, etc.).
Herbert Brown III
I do not think they should. I think instructors should be evaluated fairly and at many online schools they are not.
zara,
This is a long term dilemma. There needs to be some level of evaluation of the instructor, the instruction, etc. however, that is not always easy and most instruments do not address all the important areas. You will always have some bias of students that were unhappy with their grade when their performance in the course did not warrant a high grade...and then mark down the instructor. Maybe the most effective way is to leave most evaluation questions "open-ended" and ask for feedback on what did and did not work in the course. Then the evaluations can be used in a formative way to help instructor improve their courses and instruction.
Herbert Brown III
In a recent articale in The Boston Globe, some institutions concerned about the dropoff evaluations from students are offering incentives to students, such as lotteries for iPods or meal vouchers at Northeastern University and pizza for the class with the highest return rate in some MIT departments. The Globe says other institutions are considering withholding students’ grades until they submit the evaluations. Just because the evalutations are turned in, there is no guarantee that they are quality.
David,
You are correct that completing an evaluation does not guarantee quality in the response. I have personally witnessed professors in courses where students complain all the time about the instructor and then their evaluations come out strong. In some cases a pizza party was provided at the same time the evaluations were completed. A correlation? There are pros and cons to evaluations. I don't believe they would be so problematic if we used them as formative feedback to HELP instructors improve, instead of summative instruments to critique and provide documentation to remove instructors as they are often used.
Herbert Brown III
Unfortunately these evaluations can be influenced too much by the student who is upset with their grade even when the grade is spot on to what they earned. They want something for nothing and are upset when they don't get it. Far too often the student evaluations turn in to a tool to determine how happy a student is as opposed to evaluating the course honestly.
One university I taught at did a very detailed student on the effectiveness of doing course evaluations for every course every session. The results indicated that it was not best to do every course every session as students got bored and didn't truly evaluate the courses because of the number of evaluations they were required to complete.
So what did the university do after they received the results? They continued to do evaluations of every course after every session just as they had done for 50+ years.
Craig,
I have certainly been in the exact position you mention here. I do hope that one day it will change. The evaluations should be open-ended enough to get good formative feedback from our students about what is and what is not working in the course. That would give us a chance to improve our teaching and our courses.
Herbert Brown III
I do not feel evaluations should be required. In my experience, many students who are actively engaged in the course will complete the survey. This cohort of students will generally provide a thoughful and thorough critique of the instructor.
