Oh joy, student evaluations are in!!1! Time for me to find a comfortable chair, get a glass of wine, and settle in for an evening of honest reflection and thoughtful critique. Right? Right?
I'm smirking so hard right now that I might need elective surgery to have my snicker gland removed. That probably reflects a major personality failing on my part, but at this point, it's difficult for me to take many of the comments seriously. Much has been written on the relative worthlessness of most student evaluation models, so I won't belabor those views here. But I will say that this feedback mechanism doesn't do much for the graduate TA population.
That's not to say that there isn't anything to learn from these evaluations. Far from it. Many (if not most) students have a legitimate perspective on how the course could be improved, but it gets crowded out by more pressing concerns. We distribute this paperwork in the last week of class, when everyone's so stressed out that they just want to complete the form as fast as possible, get the f**k out of the classroom, and grab more coffee before working on something more important. Moreover, until this moment, few instructors have asked their pupils to think critically about the class's structure or its role in developing a skill set. Should we be surprised when the only note on the comment card is a chicken-scratched "too much reading"?
As a TA, my pedagogical world is not as wrapped up in these evaluations. The critics who matter most--or at least have the most direct influence on my academic life--are still the professors. Especially in courses with no discussion sections or labs, a majority of students may never have any direct contact with me, other than blast emails to the entire class or comments on their assignments (which may go unread more often than not). But this past semester, even though I ran lecture for two weeks while the good doctor was out of town, a disappointing number of students still left the "rate your teaching assistant here" section completely blank. At best, I was a benignly negligent presence in the back of the room; at worst, I was a powerless stooge, not to be taken seriously.
Actually, at worst, I was seen by a few as a detriment to the whole experience. I've been a TA long enough to know not to take it personally, and to not let it bruise my self-esteem too much. As this class's prof--a genuinely good guy, who supports his underlings--said to me today, this is just student entitlement run amok. (Are you sensing a theme from my last post? Hmm.) They don't like the grade they've earned, so they blame the teacher. In a semester where a dozen participants were caught plagiarizing, I shouldn't be surprised that a couple of bad eggs lashed out by filling in the "1" bubble for every category on the Scantron.
There have been classes (nay, entire years) when I've been profoundly unsure of my performance. There have been faculty members who have totally undermined us teaching assistants in front of the entire student body. There was one girl whose only feedback was to write the word "MESS" in that "rate your TA" box. There have been kids who've gone over my head and complained to the professor about me. This is just what happens sometimes, especially if you throw high parental expectations, professional school aspirations, and teenage hormones into the mix. And we're told by more experienced instructors not to take these reactions to heart. Some professors will just be clueless about the way they're treating you, and the students are too wrapped up in their adolescent narcissism to see you as a human being. So we all learn to simply dismiss their negative statements.
This is definitely not a healthy approach, for anyone. The instructors are conditioned to reject pessimistic comments, since they so often stem from knee-jerk, emotional reactions to poor grades. The students rarely put the time into crafting a constructive response, given their other concerns; and at this point, it's too late for them to reap any benefits from such reflection. (And doesn't it make more sense to have mid- and end-of-semester evaluations? We have to alert the dean's office if any kid is failing the course by midterms--so shouldn't we be alerted if the course itself is failing?) For the TA--given the dearth of any feedback about his role--the evaluations only hold an anthropological interest. It's a study in power dynamics, anonymity, and futility.
There has to be a better way--and this hypothetical "better way" should include a process for soliciting my opinions. Do I have criticisms of this course? Naturally. But as a liaison between the undergrads and the faculty, it's not always clear to whom I should express them. Do I agree with the guy who comes in to complain that the lectures are unstructured? Do I sympathize with the teacher's dismay over the test scores? It's both, more often than not. I see myself as an advocate for both the students and the professor, talking up each side to the other. I don't "have" a side. I'm a double-agent without an agenda, other than to get through another semester without screwing anything up... and maybe get a few nice evaluation comments for my teaching portfolio.
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