For x-uri: as I look over my student evaluations...

[cbelt3]

a wonderful thread, thanks, gents. I can recall my father talking about his student evaluations. He was a professor in the sciences at a midsized private liberal arts University. He genuinely loved to teach, and prayed daily for students that loved to learn. But he wasn't "easy", despite student expectations of a 'rocks for jocks' sort of class. He told me that the only year that he didn't flunk at least one student was the year his gradebooks and final exams were stolen (along with our family van and all of our Christmas presents).

When my sisters attended the same university, they learned that he was regarded as 'tough but fair".

[RgrF]

Lurking has benefits.

One of my college instructors was so detached from the hum drum it was a challenge just to understand where he was driving the course. Thing is he wasn't driving the class he was on his own course and asking us to keep up. That course took him to Dean then Congressman and then back to campus.

He was Bob Drinan and was ordered by his Pope to give up his seat in Congress. If the dimbulbs who ordered that knew Barney Frank was waiting in the wings, they might have thought twice.

http://tinyurl.com/25a88s

[x-uri]

RgrF - I did a FIND for the word "evaluation" in the linked article. No instances. Could you, perhaps, clarify the connection between Father Drinan and the topic of the thread?

[RgrF]

No connection. Just an opportunity for me to reflect.

It was odd. I wasn't a BC student, I was on a BU swap program, else I'd never have had the opportunity to become befuddled by the man.

Some might suggest I've been that way since.

(proof is the number of edits to a three line post)

[bfd]

Another thing to consider is that in higher education, the only real "product" is a degree. Anything that cheapens that product … so fill in the many blanks here … should be evaluated.

So, besides the teaching, which is is one of the blanks to be filled in, there are still many others. Degree programs are set by faculty and Academic Senate. Departments are staffed and crafted by Deans. Even the meek university librarian has a role. IT? U-Bet.

bfd can't speak as an expert on this. The number of students who "don't get it" and can't do anything more sophisticated than rote memorization really may not "get" an instructor who asks them to think.

So, the another question is, aside from peer review and student evals, how do we evaluate the teaching done in higher ed? And how do we evaluate the product?

[x-uri]

[quote bfd]Another thing to consider is that in higher education, the only real "product" is a degree. Anything that cheapens that product … so fill in the many blanks here … should be evaluated.

So, besides the teaching, which is is one of the blanks to be filled in, there are still many others. Degree programs are set by faculty and Academic Senate. Departments are staffed and crafted by Deans. Even the meek university librarian has a role. IT? U-Bet.

bfd can't speak as an expert on this. The number of students who "don't get it" and can't do anything more sophisticated than rote memorization really may not "get" an instructor who asks them to think.

So, the another question is, aside from peer review and student evals, how do we evaluate the teaching done in higher ed? And how do we evaluate the product?
No, the product of education is an educated person. The degree is a signifier, indicating the level of achievement of that person. Treating a degree as a commodity is what cheapens it, and what leads to nonsense like student evaluations and pre-law programs.

The question is not only HOW to evaluate the quality of instruction, but WHO sets the standards against which the instruction is to be evaluated.

It is tempting to say that we need an objective standard of achievement so that we could compare students from different schools. We could then track the performance of the students by instructor. The feedback would take a while to collect.

To this end it would be useful to have compulsory national exams, but I am guessing that this would be a nightmare to negotiate and to administer and that the Congressional Delegation from Dumbfsckistan would insist that you could sit for AS levels in Young Earth Creationism.

Of course, a standardized test really only measures performance on a standardized test, and there would be pressure on the schools to "teach to the test" and Kaplan would have a series of prep classes.

No, you need to evaluate how the life of the educated person has been changed. How that life influences intersecting lives. Then track this back to the instructor that person had for Introduction to The Lyric Poem.

Come up with a system for doing that, and you'll really have something.

[mrthuse]

OK, x-uri...I'm back...this time w/ a direct answer to "how (has) the life of the educated person (has) been changed"...

At the risk of your gloves coming off yet again, I humbly offer you the following - it goes to my high school seniors at year's end as an optional writing:

1. Compose a letter to yourself saying pretty much whatever you’d like. This letter is personal AND WILL NOT BE OPENED BY ANYONE OTHER THAN YOU. You may bash whomever or whatever you’d like or sing the praises of whomever or whatever you choose. The content of this letter is thoroughly up to you. It may be as long or as short as you choose but experience has taught that the longer you make it, the better you feel about yourself and the project when you receive it back.

2. Sign the letter and seal it in an envelop. Address it to yourself at your current address and print the words “Please Forward” in the lower left hand corner. DO NOT PUT ANY RETURN ADDRESS ON IT AND DO NOT PUT ANY POSTAGE ON IT (There’s no way to know how much it’s going to cost to mail a letter when it’s time for you to receive yours back, so don’t waste your money.).

3. Turn the letter over and place your initials over the sealed flap. This insures that you’ll be able to tell if the letter’s been tampered with.

4. Give me the letter. I will hold it for you for ten years and then mail it back to you. Many of you will have moved on (that’s why you write “Please Forward” on the left bottom corner of the envelop), but in most cases your letter will find you. (I’ve received replies from folks in Europe, Africa, Central America and China whose letter finally made its way to them.) I’ll put my own return address in the upper left corner, so if the Post Office can’t find you, your letter will return to me. I’ll seek you out and if possible return your letter to you. In the event I can not locate you within a reasonable length of time, I will destroy your letter without opening it. In the event I die before your ten years are up, your letter will be returned to you with a note explaining that I have indeed “shuffled off this mortal coil” - there is a codicil in my will instructing my executors to mail out the 10 shoe boxes of letters in my home office.

5. Wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, your life will stop for a few minutes when your letter returns. It’s one good way of measuring how much you’ve changed and what sort of dreams you had for yourself when you were younger. It’s also useful for evaluating what was important to you when you were 18 or so and what’s important when you’re 28. I know some teachers who assign a variation on this form and send letters back in 4 years. I don’t think we change enough in 4 years for the exercise to pack the desired wallop. At any rate, you’ll get your letter back if you choose to do this optional assignment and I’m fairly certain you’ll be better for it in ten years if you do. Good luck.

...and I sign my name.

That's it.

I actually "lost" a student, back in '76, but on a hunch saved his letter. When watching an interview w/ some mucky-muck from Dupont Chemical a couple of years ago, I recognized the on-air interviewee as the guy I'd lost. Dupont put us in touch and he got his letter, albeit about 20 years late.

Don't know if you'd find any of this useful, but the inevitable replies I receive help me decide if I've been a "good and faithful servant" to my charges.

...fire at will.

[x-uri]

[quote mrthuse]OK, x-uri...I'm back...this time w/ a direct answer to "how (has) the life of the educated person (has) been changed"...
An interesting project, but it doesn't address BFD's question (or mine).

I was suggesting that, in oder to judge the quality of instruction, it would be necessary to come up with a way to measure something other than test scores --- and that it might take years for the benefit (or harm) of an educational experience to manifest.

I see nothing in your sealed letter proposal that would allow an educator to collect and act upon information about the effect of a particular course of instruction upon the subsequent quality of life of the students who completed it.

May I ask what subject you teach?

[mrthuse]

Over the years, a little over half of the students who complete the exercise have written back to me.

Usually their lives have turned other other than they anticipated, though most have found better lives at 28 than they figured they would at 18. For the last 15 years at least 40% of them have been classified as "at-risk". When I spoke earlier of terror, I meant what I said. Living well through today into tomorrow's a very big deal to roughly 4 out of 10 of them, and having 24 hours free from some sort of physical or psychological abuse is consequential in a way I doubt you or I could understand. It is astounding to me that they write back at all, and when they do, most freely relate the classroom experiences they found - in hindsight - profitable/useful, and those they found - well, less so.

Certainly, there's little empirical data coming from an exercise like this, but if the point is to find out:

"how the life of the educated person has been changed. How that life influences intersecting lives. Then track this back to the instructor that person had for Introduction to The Lyric Poem",

I'd say that criteria has been met (if the "educated person" is one who recognizes things about their situation they can hook back to something they learned about and valued outside of what I earlier referred to as "the school of hard knocks").

Now, if you're asking how knowing about Brunelleschi's Dome or the VITA NUOVA's made their life different from what it would have been had they not been in my class, I'd guess you'd have to ask them. I don't ask because I'm thankful they survived and wrote back at all. There are some, however, who slough through their own particular detritus and do relate how some of the best moments of their young lives were the ones spent thinking about Piersig's ...MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE, listening to Liszt's "Prometheus" tone poem or wrestling w/ Pascal's WAGER.

I've taught in the Humanities Department at my local high school for about 35 years.

[x-uri]

What I was describing was a method for a 3rd party to collect data on the benefit or harm of a particular instructor's tuition. Statistically valid data, to replace or supplement the data collected in student evaluations and peer reviews.

Your letters are interesting, and no doubt valuable to the students who receive them, but they do not -- as you describe them -- fulfill the stated purpose of the student evaluations.