Ethos

Question: What is the point of course evaluations?

When students and professors really care about education and educating, course evaluations can be very helpful.

The most obvious advantage is identifying elements of a course to keep, jettison or improve upon. As importantly, course evaluations are an opportunity for students and professors to dialogue about the meaning and significance of education. Course evaluations can help a department or program monitor its quality, and identify areas needing collective improvement. Sometimes evaluations are a flag that alerts the community to a professor in personal difficulty, making it possible to intervene in helpful and respectful ways.

Speaking for myself, I take course evaluations very seriously. I use student comments to triangulate on improvements to syllabi, lectures, discussions, assignments and tests. As a matter of best practice, I do this in every course each and every year. I also expressly designed my evaluations to elicit a range of quantitative and qualitative data that is germane to each course.

I gently suggest that before students complete an evaluation, they dig out the syllabus to remind themselves of the course’s intentions and content. This helps them write as specific and relevant feedback as possible.

I am especially interested in students thoughts on the following.

* The order of topics and readings (e.g. Should the readings I assign on ethics come before or after those I assign on public policy?)

* The time devoted to particular topics and readings (e.g. Would you like more time reading a particular author, or a particular subject?)

* Additional topics and readings (e.g. What other topics and/or readings would you like to have incorporated into the course?)

* The integration of courses (e.g. If you’ve taken several of my courses, does this courses inform and clarify other courses I teach? Is there a web of knowledge that is emerging?)

* The integration of program (e.g. What are you thoughts on how this course informs other courses in the program?)

When my students fill out course evaluations completely and seriously, it is of substantial help to me and to future students. So a big thank you to those who take the time to do so!

If course evaluations can be so helpful, why then are many faculty and students cynical about them? To understand why, some straight talk about academic politics is in order.

There are many studies on course evaluations. They tend to show a strong correlation between a student’s evaluation’s of a course or professor, and their anticipated grade irrespective of the effort they put forth in the course. This situation is exacerbated by the increasing commodification of education. When higher education is approached as a commodity to be bought, it minimizes student’s participation in their own learning, and detracts from education as an apprenticeship to knowledge, a prerequisite for informed citizenship, and a forge of character.

Administrators frequently talk-up evaluations as a mechanism of quality control exemplifying an institution’s undying commitment to teaching. A rather odd claim given that there are few rewards in many of these same institutions for teaching well. The reality is that many professors are evaluated primarily (often solely) in terms of the scholarship they produce. If they take time away from producing the next research article to teach or advise well, they pay a price in job security or compensation.

For example, I know of one institution where all professors were ranked according to their teaching quality. This was determined by an absurdly short and irrelevant questionnaire in what amounted to a popularity contest. Unfortunately, it had dire results — the lowest ranking professors were fired. Not surprisingly, this approach drove down the quality of teaching. Students figured this out rather quickly, and would punish faculty for hard courses or low grades. And you can imagine what other professors thought when it came time to assign challenging reading, assignments or tests in their courses.

There are also many institutions where teaching is prized. In my own experience, Green Mountain College, Vassar College and Williams College stand out in this respect. These institutions have excellent faculty, along with administrators and institutional incentives that support one’s teaching effort. In a similar vein, my students have been great — striving for their personal best and excelling in the face of rigourous demands. Its no exaggeration to say I have been fortunate to work with great colleagues and students.

What then is the take-home message? I think the task for faculty and students is to approach course evaluations with mutual respect and responsibility. An open mind on the part of faculty, and fair contributions on the part of students, can take us a long way together.

Cheers, Bill

William Lynn :: Oct.31.2008 :: Student Space :: Comments Off

Students have been asking about the Spring Semester course I will teach at Williams College.

I’ll be teaching one course entitled ‘Understanding Policy’ and the ‘Senior Seminar’. I’ve included a brief description of the courses below. Both are in the Environmental Studies program, but students from other majors are welcome to register. I think you will find both of value.

If you find that the course is over-enrolled, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Please note that the schedule for these courses has changed. The new schedule is as follows.

Envi 309 Understanding Policy: Ethics, Science and Politics will be held from 11:20-12:45 on Tuesdays and Thursdays

Envi 402 Senior Seminar: Ethics and the Environment will be held from 19:00-21:45 on Mondays.

cheers, Bill

~

Envi 309. Understanding Policy: Ethics, Science, and Politics.
This course looks at environmental (and other) policies in light of the critical, interpretive and ethical turns in the social sciences. These turns emphasize the role of agency, meaning, power, discourse, and justice in the policy process, and are indispensable to understanding what policy is and how it works. We shall look at the theory, method and practice of this broadly ‘critical’ approach to policy, and apply its insights and tools to a set of empirical cases where the well-being of people, animals and nature is at stake.

The format is lecture and discussion. Evaluation is based on tests, a research paper (in lieu of a final exam), and active participation in class. Enrolment is limited to 20, or with the permission of the instructor.

This course satisfies one semester of the Division II requirement for Williams, and one semester of the environmental policy requirement for Environmental Studies.

Envi 402. Senior Seminar: Ethics and the Environment.
This seminar focuses on the ethical and conceptual dimensions of environmental studies. It does so to facilitate our individual reflection and collective deliberation about humanity’s relationship to nature, the framing of environmental issues in scientific, political and moral debate, and the implications this has for the resolution of environmental problems. Students integrate what they learn in this seminar with their prior coursework and experience, and produce a policy-relevant research paper on an environmental issue of their choice. Environmental Studies and Maritime Studies provide students with an opportunity to explore nature-society relations from local to global scales, and with particular emphasis on terrestrial and aquatic contexts. The possible topics that one might research in this course are boundless.

The format is seminar-based. Evaluation is based on tests, a research paper (in lieu of a final exam), and active participation in class. Enrolment is limited to Envi or MAST students, whose prerequisites are Envi 302 or MAST 351. Other students may enrol with the permission of the instructor.

This course satisfies a required course for the Environmental Studies or Maritime Studies concentrations.

William Lynn :: Oct.26.2008 :: Student Space :: Comments Off