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Show The Daily Utah Chronicle, Openings 1977 Page Thirteen IN FOCUS What do ou think of the recently completed Course Evaluation booklets as a measure of the instructor's performance in a class? What could be done to improve the evaluation svstem? ,,,.,.,..,..,--.,..,. ft ... , , ... ,i.'. X "-- "- Leslie mm fin nj.nmtti " i. e r I I1 C Glaser, professor of mathematics suppose there are a lot of professors who, if they got reasonably good reports, might belieir a lot; but if things seem to go against them, might downgrade tn them the course them a little bit. I think most professors tn the furious departments hair some idea who the better teachers are, and which ones seem to hair some trouble. In that sense, the reports look quite accurate to me the better teachers did get the better reports, and the people that did seem to hair some troubles. ..well, had some troubles. don't really find them too useful; they don't giir me enough information about how I can improir my classes. In the math department, there are a lot of people interested in improving their teaching, but these statistics don't really help. Last fall, I had an evaluation of a very big I looked at the reports. I did see some very helpful comments class, and I suppose I did a no-nthere, good suggestions from individuals. But when the final exaluations came back, all you have is numbers. When I go into the classroom, I would loir students to come in and make suggestions, but they're afraid of the class, or of what I'll think of them...l'm not going to fail them if they hair complaints, or see things I'm doing right, or things I might do better. But it's next to impossible to get students to come tn and do things like that. There are inconsistencies. Those students who were getting A s had a lot of nice things to say; those students failing had terrible things to say. I think if you threw out the absolute top and trry bottom, these things would be more accurate. o: William F.pstein, professor of themistiy I think it the evaluation system) is both good and bad. The evaluations are only as good as the students who fill them out. The ones who don't do it are probably the ones you'd really want on there, the ones who have something to say. If everybody did it and was conscientious about it, then it would be a good thing but that just doesn't happen. The reality of it is that people are people, human nature is human nature, and the result is you have something that is not as valuable as it could be. But I'm not saying it shouldn't be done. Many times the most controversial 'eat hers will polarize students into two camps, those who hate him and those who love him. Whereas if you tend to play the safe, middle-groungame, you won't get terribly good renews, and you won't get terribly bad ones either. I really don't know what could be done to improve the system, though. I think there are teachers who are not particularly interested in teaching; they don't dislike it, it's just not their main interest. But I don't think you could make any generalizations about who takes the evaluations seriously, and who doesn't. d -- 4 v 1 - r V .5 2- 1 wVt " f Ik J1 fd " Rex Campbell, professor of humanities I've always been interested in them course ewluations because I wanted to know xvhat students think of their particular teachers. Unfortunately, some of the professors on the campus have been victims of severe criticism so they're low on the list and they resent it it's a psychological problem you have to put up with. In the course of examining the evaluation book, I've wondered if it's really an accurate ei'aluation, or if maybe the students aren't somehow reacting to the kind of grades they get. That's a chief criticism among my colleagues. Now let's take into consideration the honor students. I've been teaching honors courses for a long time, and the students I get in those courses already have high GPAs. I don't know how ynu could impose a bell curve with the grade that most students get set at a Cor something and still be fair to the honor student. So my honor students have received As and Bs; very seldom have I given an honor student a C. So the GPAs among my honor students are high, and the reaction among my colleagues is "Yeah, look what you give your honor students, and look what they give you in return positive course evaluations." The grading system is the major factor in this whole thing. Can you impose the same kind of grading system that professors of science can impose upon their students in grading courses in liberal education? I think one improvement in the evaluation system would be to wait until the student is ready to leave the University. If a student, as he leaves the University, can look back on hts first year and say, "That's one of the finest courses I ever took, and that's one of the most impressive professors I ever had, and he taught me things I'll never forget," if a student can say that after he's finished his undergraduate work, or his work at the University, I think that might be more accurate. Albert Grundman, professor of biology think the younger professors tend to take them evaluations more seriously than the older ones. Perhaps they younger professors have more of an interest in such things as promotion and retention. I've been at this for about 32 years, and I guess I've gained a little experience at ..... leaching. Basically, I'm favorable to them, although sometimes I've wondered, at the few times I've looked at them. What you find mostly is the fact that most of the courses come out in a sort of medium, indeterminate sort of condition. I'm not sure this really tells students very much or not. I've never really asked students if the course evaluations had much influence on what classes they decided to take, so I really couldn't say from that angle, however. In improving the evaluations, I think it would be a matter of looking at some of the forms; perhaps there should be changes in some of the questions that are asked, or maybe they should be asked in a different way. A lot of times, the way in which the question is asked more or less determines the kind of answer you'll get. If you asked the same question in a different way, you might end up with a much broader range of opinion. If a student has no prior knowledge in a subject, he has a limited ability to really judge course content, unless, of course, he simply judges the way in which the material is presented. I think those two things have to be considered in looking at the evaluations also. I mm-i- J. pf " : :' J |