April 13, 2009
I attended my first university faculty meeting today. The two main topics that were discussed were evaluations and parking. The update on the new building and parking issues due to construction was very frustrating to the faculty because they had no say so in the matter. Basically, they were told that the students and staff would have to park a mile away and be shuttled to the university. This was going into effect the next day. You can only imagine the effect this had on the faculty. I was very surprised that there was no committee that included the faculty's input into how these shuttle services would work. The garage would only be open from 7-5 so the faculty would have to release students for 45 minutes during class time (for the evening classes) to go get there vehicles. I definitely got a taste of the frustration that goes behind working at an institution where all the decisions are made from the top to the bottom. I do not agree with this hierarchy especially when it is the faculty and students that are affected and not the administration from the Denton campus.
Another focus of the meeting was course evaluations. One faculty suggested the students be required to complete course evaluations. This suggestion was immediately nullified because evaluations are voluntary. The faculty over the course I am working with has approximately 120 students and only 6 students returned evaluations on one of the instructors. All of the evaluations were negative because that is generally the population that completes the evaluations. Unfortunately, this would not be a representative sample of all the opinions of the student's in this course. The faculty expressed that these evaluations are heavily weighed on their end of the year evaluations and were a poor representation of student's feedback on them throughout the semester. The faculty suggested handout evaluations instead of emailed evaluations because they could provide the students with incentives (candy) for completing them. This may be a way for them to increase their sample size. Needless to say, I didn't realize how few participants actually filled out evaluations. I guess many just don't understand how important evaluation is to ongoing program improvement.
April 15, 2009
I found lecture very interesting today. The first lecture was on the high risk newborn. I have never worked in the NICU so she kept me very interested especially on the topic of HIV and substance abuse. It definitely made me want to learn more. She did not use any different tactics from what I have already seen, but her topic was very interesting. I think finding an interesting topic is an automatic benefit when your are lecturing.
The second lecture was done by a UTA graduate student. She lectured on the postpartum assessment. I think she did a great job with the use of case studies and asking questions. It was great to be there as a support for her.
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120 students and only 6 returned the evaluations-- that is awful!!! Wow, that evaluation system is obviously not working for them. It is sad they have to give candy incentives. I think handing them out in class and having the students return them in class would definitly get more feedback than email evaluations. Interesting- did they come to a final decision about how to improve the process?
ReplyDeleteThat's so interesting that you brought up evaluations. In my evaluation course we talked about (in our evaluation plan) the fact that grades would not be given out until evaluations were turned in. Our instructor then brought up that this could be viewed as coercive to the student. I agree...I hadn't thought of it that way. They do have to be mandatory, but I think that the faculty's suggestion of doing it in the class setting would be a good one. Students would be more likely to fill them out. I feel terrible for the faculty member who only had 6 (negative) evaluations turned in. That has to feel terrible. I don't know what else they could do except like they said, have the evaluation done in person (class) and offer little incentives. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of handing out the evaluations, it does ensure a valid sample. This is what the last clinical instructor I observed did for the last day of clinical. She handed out the evaluations and then left the room, the students filled them out and placed them in a sealed envelope. She then asked for a volunteer to take the evaluations to the university. If these evaluations are going to effect an instructors annual evaluation they must have a representative sample or they are not valid and should be discarded.
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