My reply to the reader, given as comments within his message, appears below.
I want to stress that it isn't the
idea of course evaluation that is at issue, but rather the simplistic manner by which we claim we are evaluating
the instructor.
Though I did not intend to write again about course evaluation, the fortuitous
meeting with consultant
Jennifer Franklin got me realize that I had the material for a good article.
Click here to read "What's in a Name?" on page 3 (1223-1224).
The following is the exchange with Donald Myers (where the website comments
at the beginning of the message
have been deleted):
. . . . I'll insert comments below:
On Mon, 24 Feb 2003, Donald E. Myers wrote:
> I like the points you made in your opinion about telling the students
> that they are responsible for learning but now a question
>
> What do you think about "student course evaluations"?
. . . . They don't evaluate the course.
> I am Emeritus so I don't have to worry about it anymore but it seems to
> me (at least at my university) that course evaluations have led to a
> serious dumbing down of courses.
. . . . That was predictable, wasn't it? The dumbing down of courses is
prima facie evidence that the instructors and administrators do not care
about education.
> No one wants to irritate or provoke their students into giving them a
> bad evaluation. We also have a new "Post-Tenure" review system with the
> potential of having your tenure revoked, the administration wants to
> make it appear that they take teaching seriously so they put a lot of
> weight on course evaluations. Moreover all the evaluations (summary
> statistics) are put on the university web sites (supposedly only
> accessible to students or at least only to on campus computers).
. . . . I have made a quote in print: "The world rewards the appearance of
merit oftener than merit itself." -- Francois de La Rochefoucauld. You
said: "the administration wants to make it appear that they take
teaching
seriously so they put a lot of weight on course evaluations."
> Maybe you would like to write another opinion about course evaluations
> although that might be more risky.
. . . . I have expressed my opinions about course evaluations, on several
occasions. My comments above are the briefest description. Any method of
evaluating a course without an assessment of learning is incompetent.
Assessing learning cannot be done by asking students, though, and that
makes it harder to do. People ask for quick criteria for making serious
judgments.
. . . . I wish somebody else would take a shot at course evaluations. My
university has a sensible administration, but I keep reminding them of the
dangers for the future: exactly what you described at Arizona.
Let me subside here for now. Thanks for your message.