I'm at a bit of a crossroads as a teacher, and want to see what you all think. Here's the story in a nutshell. I've historically had really good student evaluations, well above my university averages and usually accompanied by very positive written comments. I also had a number of students take class after class with me, and was able to get these results in a way that I thought had a lot of integrity (e.g. my courses were not easy, but rather rated by students as significantly more challenging than other courses). Indeed, my methods played into my teaching philosophy, which has always been to bring out the best in as many students as possible, 'leaving no one behind.' One feature of this philosophy – which I still utilize – is to allow and encourage students to revise-and-resubmit at least one of their term-papers as many times as they wish (which I've found to be very important pedagogically). While my courses were rated as quite challenging (students often received very low grades on early paper drafts), the methods I used often resulted in fairly high average final grades (e.g. in the 'B' range) – something which I expect led most of my students to walk away from my courses pretty happy.
However, several years ago during my pretenure review I was encouraged to change my practices in a couple of ways:
- Expand my methods of evaluating student work beyond the primarily essay-focused exams, reading responses, and term-papers I was giving (e.g. to include things like multiple-choice quizzes, etc.).
- Make it more difficult to get B-or-higher final grades (ostensibly, to increase the overall challenge of my courses).
While I was a bit hesitant to change practices that seemed to be working, I not only wanted to get tenure – I also wanted to trust my senior colleagues (the department and college pretenure committees). So I went out of my way to change my teaching methods in the ways suggested…and the consequences of the changes I have made are both interesting and challenging. So much so in fact that I feel torn about what kind of teacher to be moving forward. Allow me to explain.
The interesting thing I found was that, from my vantage point at least, the recommendations I was given by the pretenure committees (and my dean) were pedagogically good ones. First, the different kinds of assessment methods I'm now using (many of which are still essay-based, but which now include things like multiple-choice quizzes and more challenging weekly written homework) seem to me to measure important differences in student performance, doing a better job of separating out who has better learned and retained the relevant philosophical material (which seems important to me, as I want students to leave my courses actually remembering what they've learned!). Second, the new assessment methods do indeed appear make my courses even more challenging than before, making it much harder to get a grade of B or higher (and especially an 'A' grade) than before. This also seems good to me, as it makes higher grades in my courses more of an achievement.
The challenging thing I've found, however, is that the changes appear to have led to significantly-less-positive student evaluations, and fewer students repeatedly retaking courses from me. The changes are by no means 'terrible.' On the contrary, my quantitative numbers are still pretty high given the level of difficulty my students report. Whereas my student ratings used to consistently be well-upward of 4.5 (on a 5-point scale, where 5 = 'outstanding'), this past semester they were closer to '4' (i.e. 'very good'). From my vantage-point, this is still pretty good, especially given that my students reported the overall difficulty of my courses approximately one full standard-deviation above my college averages (on assignment difficulty, exam difficulty, etc.). I've doctored an image from this Slate post on how 'hotness' and difficulty affects ratemyprofessor rating to illustrate roughly how my student evaluations have 'moved' quantitatively:
This still looks pretty good to me. Relative to the level of difficulty my students are reporting (i.e. super high), my overall evaluations are still quite 'good.' However, the change is significant. I'm also receiving more qualitative 'complaints' from students in their comments – the most common of which have recently been that my courses are too difficult, I move too quickly through the material, and teach the material at too high of a level. And I'm also getting fewer students who take my different courses from me over and over again.
The problem I'm facing (viz. the 'crossroads' I mentioned at the outset of this post) is that I'm just not sure what to do with this. Now that I have tenure, I don't have some of the self-interested reasons to worry about this that I might have had pre-tenure (viz. a tenure-committee being worried about unhappy students). It's also not clear to me–despite the comments I've been receiving–that I'm doing anything wrong as a teacher. Yes, my courses may now be super-difficult; yes, I may move at a breakneck speed; and yes, I may teach material at a high-level – but I have some really excellent students who meet all of these challenges (viz. the few 'A' grades I've been assigning), and it's not clear to me that other students are worse off for it (despite their perception that the course may be 'too difficult' or 'too fast'). It's not clear to me in part because of recent studies indicating that student perceptions of learning may have a tenuous (at best) relationship to actual student learning. Since I'm not sure I'm doing anything wrong, the only 'clear' reason I seem to have for changing course (i.e. slowing down, lessening course difficulty somewhat) seems to me self-interested, viz. having more happy students, more 'repeat customers' (students taking multiple courses from me), attracting more majors to the department. These may actually be good reasons. At many institutions these days, the health and viability of small departments (e.g. humanities departments like philosophy) can very much depend on things like class enrollment, major numbers, etc. Still, these are self-interested considerations, and should (presumably) be weighed against other ones, such as pedagogical integrity. I've always wanted to be more than a good teacher. I've wanted to be a great teacher–and an inspiring one–in large part because I was inspired to become a philosophy by ones I had, and I've seen in the most personal way how much of a difference a great teacher can make in a life. On the flip-side, it has never been clear to me whether truly great teachers are always (or even usually) the most well-liked teachers. For instance, one great teacher who made an enormous difference in my life wasn't all that well-liked by a good number of students, in part because of how demanding they were as a teacher.
Hence, the puzzle I'm facing: I'm just not sure how to proceed. My evaluations are 'worse' than they used to be, and I have more complaints than before – but they are still 'pretty good', and a fair number of students still give very positive feedback, despite how challenging my courses have recently become. When it comes to the question of whether to 'change course', the 'balance of reasons' is unclear to me. Which is why I share my predicament with you all. What do you all think? How do you respond to student evaluations? How do you think one should respond? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Leave a Reply