Evaluating Student Evaluations

A recent conversation with a new faculty member who was anxious about how her first year of teaching at Suffolk would be viewed by her students reminded me that weathering the first full set of student evaluations can be a difficult rite of passage. As with all rites of passage, this experience for my colleague was sure to produce mixed emotions, from downright indignation about a student's negative and, more importantly, inaccurate rant, e.g., "the professor was NEVER available," to self-congratulatory glee in another one's stellar praise, e.g., "this professor was extremely intelligent - the absolute best!" After discounting these extremes, as we know they are mostly prompted by the low and high grade each student received, respectively, the real task of understanding the evaluations begins. Good or bad, there's no doubt that it's pretty interesting to learn how your students perceive you.



My first set of evaluations a few years ago, for example, had their share of the requisite extreme critiques, but also revealed in essence that I was not easily approachable. This critique came as a huge surprise to me, as I felt that I was doing a good job of being accessible to my students, and had even made that a priority. It forced me to think hard about why the students felt this way, and how I would address the matter. I also enlisted the advice of an expert (the CTE's own Donna Qualters) who helped me to see that once I had this awareness, there were specific ways to achieve a more open channel of communication with students. After making these changes the following year, I really felt that I was a more effective teacher, which in turn the evaluations that year clearly reflected.



The moral is that student evaluations, while inevitably anxiety-inducing, can create valuable opportunities for improving teaching skills. It just takes a willingness to take an uncomfortably close look at yourself through your students' eyes.