Collaboration – “A Fresh Set of Eyes”

In the last few months, I’ve been reminded of the power of collaboration.  Sometimes we think of collaboration as letting other people help us do our own work.  My preference is usually to do work by myself and turn it in as if it’s complete and ready to be archived for all time.  Perhaps it’s the student in me.  Most of our classes take this approach to classwork: 

1. Student becomes aware of an assignment
2. Student spends time (varying) gathering information to complete the assignment
3. Student writes assignment
4. Student hands in assignment
5. Teacher grades assignment
6. Student forgets about assignment

That approach may be appropriate when it comes to actually doing the work.  But I want to focus instead on how collaboration can help us think, before the work is completed.  The contribution to our thoughts that collaboration brings can give us much clearer thoughts when it comes time to actually set down and finish the assignment.  Here are three examples of collaboration I have used recently to actually make work easier.

• Meeting with faculty members as a group during the curricular review led to a far better curriculum than the one I had sketched in my own mind.
• Meeting with individual faculty members to work on the objectives for their programs gave each of us insight into the others thoughts and came up with a very usable collection of objectives, both for the catalog and for the future development of courses.
• Meeting with individual faculty members to work on a course syllabus gives us the opportunity to look at everything with two sets of eyes, questioning the rationale for and results of using the assignments in the class.

It’s this last one I want to encourage you most on.  As you are working on refreshing your syllabi for the new semester, why not get a fresh set of eyes?  They don’t have to be mine!  I can give you some help if you need it, but we have a faculty full of intelligent, experienced people who are full of good ideas. 

Utilize your fellow faculty members (including the part-time ones) to get an idea of how you might improve things.  Not only will they be thrilled to be asked, but they will have satisfaction in knowing they contributed to the improvement of someone else’s course, even if it’s only a very small way.

How have you used collaboration in the past to think more clearly about your teaching role?  Who do you think would be best to give insight in a class you are trying to improve?  Ask them, today!

Evaluation Time

Every so often, we distribute the evaluation material that our students submit concerning their courses. This year, we’re doing the entire school year’s worth of information at once, just because we didn’t get to it sooner.

Hopefully it comes in time to help you in your planning for the upcoming year’s version of your courses. In this posting, I would like to discuss the components, limitations, and benefits of the course evaluations, so that you can maximize your improvement as a result of reading and digesting them.

Components

There are three parts to the evaluations.  

1. Listed Questions - The 38 questions that are asked to the students are ranked on a scale from 1-5 by them.  We analyze for you the average score (on a scale from 1-10, with 10 being highest.)  We also break it down so that you can see a percentage of the students who agree (somewhat or strongly) or disagree (somewhat or strongly).  Use these numbers to see how students overall felt about the different areas that we asked about, such as assignments, textbooks, difficulty, personality, mission statement fit, and other areas.
2. Categorized Scores – The bottom of the first page puts several questions together to give you an overview of your performance in a course (and overall as an instructor) in the following categories:  organization, size & sequence, textbooks, benefit, CCCB mission fit (these cover the course itself) and personality, knowledge, communication, management, and overall (these cover the instructor).  In case you’re interested, here is the formula for each category (* signifies score is reversed):       

Organization=1+5+13+9*+14*
Size=2+6+10
Textbook=3+7+11+15
Benefit=4+8+12+16
Mission=17+18+19+20
Personality=21+25+28+32
Knowledge=22+26+29+33
Communication=23+30+34
Management=24+27+35+35
Overall=36+37+38

       The first column of scores represent the calculated category score for the specific course listed at the top of the page.  The second column of scores is the average of all courses offered that particular semester.  The third column of scores is the average of all your scores offered that particular semester.  (If you only offered one course for the semester, it should be the same as the first column!)

       Use these scores to see how students are comparing your courses to other courses at the College, or how they perceive your performance in one area in one course compared to all of your courses.  This can help you see which courses could use some attention to get you up to the level that students see you in all the other courses and the other courses you teach.  For instance, you may find that your instructor score for organization is below the average of all courses.  That might tell you you should talk to me or another teacher about how to get more organized in your courses.  On the other hand, if your instructor score for organization is comparable to everyone else’s, but one course has a particularly low score (and another one has a high score), you could look for ideas from the well-evaluated course to apply to the lower ranked course.

3. Comments – The most powerful (and sometimes painful) section of these evaluations are the specific comments that students wrote.  They are anonymized (although, I can determine the author if necessary).  With the students typing these online and this section required, some of the comments are less than descriptive.  Others are possibly too much so.  They are uncorrected or edited, although meaningless comments (some students like to type asdfkljas; just to fill up the blank) have been deleted.

Limitations

1. Under-experienced – These student evaluations are not made by experienced teachers.  Many of them have taken less than 10 courses in their whole college career. Don’t read them as experts in the field of education (or theology or ministry, for that matter).  For example, someone may complain that the tests were unfair because they asked for too many details.  You shouldn’t be persuaded by that comment alone.  However, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to ask someone else (a more experienced student or another teacher) for their input, to see if they agree.
2. Self-centered – These evaluations are done at the end of the semester, right before the students see their grades.  They are very self-interested at this point.  Their opinions reflect only their personal take on something.  This is both a limitation and a benefit (see below).  Don’t assume that just because one person thought something, everyone in the class agreed.
3. Middle-deprived – The comments are usually very minimal for most people.  A few people write a lot of comments (both positive and negative).  Just because one person writes a scathing review of the class doesn’t mean that everyone else in the course shares that opinion.  Similarly, one gushing comment that says “This is the best class anyone could ever take and my ministry will never be the same because of it” doesn’t mean that the course is perfect and has no need for improvement.  You should expect that the people who wrote “good” probably had positives and negatives to say but didn’t feel like explaining it all.  Realize that there are unrepresented voices in the course who may have talked to you in person but didn’t write anything on the evaluation.

Benefits

1. Broadening your view – I have always appreciated how course evaluations help me see myself through more eyes than just my own.  Face it, I’m biased when looking at myself!  And other professors may be more objective, but they don’t come to my classes.  I don’t know a better way to find out the opinion of objective people other than asking them to tell me after the class is over.  It’s not perfect, but it’s the best I can give you.  Even if you think a comment was unfair or inaccurate, it is good to at least know the thought is floating around out there.
2. Getting inside their head – In a related matter, I have longed to know what my students really think about the course, my approach to it, and even the experience of being in the class.  Tests don’t really tell me that.  But what they type when they are all alone may reveal more of their true thoughts than I could ever get.  With the generation we are teaching now, they share EVERYTHING online.  You might not like it when they tell you something, but at least now you know what is in their head.




3. Finding what sticks – A year after the course is over, what will people remember about your course?  I propose that what they write on their comment is what they will remember.  Therefore, the comments tell you what is sticking with the students.  Did they learn more than what they say in their comments?  Sure.  But impression is a big deal.  It will affect whether this student will come back to another class you teach, ask you for insight or help in the future, and what they will tell other people about you and the class.  If that’s positive, I want to know what it was.  If it’s negative, I want to know what it was.

Part-time teachers will have the comments emailed to them as attached PDF files that can be printed.  Full-time teachers will have printouts in their mailboxes next week, as well as attached PDF files for searching and saving.

So what are your hopes (and fears) as course evaluations are coming out?