If you’ve ever hesitated to offer feedback to a colleague for fear of creating tension or hurting a relationship, you’re not alone. Even in academic settings, where critique is part of the culture, giving candid feedback, especially to fellow professionals, can feel risky. Yet our
Although I have been teaching for nearly 20 years, the memory of the first day I stepped into a classroom and faced students as a graduate teaching fellow is still sharp in my mind. I stood at the front of the room as students trickled
Many years ago my wife sat in on one of my face-to-face classes to observe my teaching. I was surprised to hear about things I did not know I was doing, such as saying OK every couple of minutes and making puzzled expressions. This showed
Love ’em or hate ’em, student evaluations of teaching (SETs) are here to stay. Parts one and two of this series explored discussing SETs’ bias in the classroom; here, in the final installment, I offer three not-so-obvious ways to put your students’ feedback to work.
OK, everyone. As I’ve mentioned a few times this semester, we’re going to spend 40 minutes today discussing bias in student evaluations.
You’ve already completed evals for our class (thanks!), but soon your other instructors will begin their end-of-semester campaigns. Incentivizing.
Are you sitting down? Good. Because I have a shocking confession.
For the past few years, I’ve reserved 40 minutes of class time each semester to discuss bias in student evaluations of teaching (SETs) with my students. You know, the ones who are actually
Peter Filene, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says that “teaching is only as successful as the learning it produces.” Students bring a certain set of expectations, personalities ,and learning dynamics with them at the beginning of
A junior colleague asked me whether teaching for many years made me thicker skinned. They wondered whether reading student evaluations gets easier with time.
I was reminded of an essay by Stephen Marche (2023) on writers and the reviews they receive. Marche recounts the
The animals went in two by two to be saved from the flood. To some students, doing poorly on the first exam is also a calamity of biblical proportions. A bad first grade is often nearly impossible to recover from if no changes to studying
We’ve all written them: the narratives or statements that frame our teaching for those reviewing our portfolios. Maybe the review is for a job; maybe it is for contract renewal, tenure, or promotion. But how many of us have had a clue about what this
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