This semester I've faced many new challenges as a new teaching assistant. I've worried about preparing engaging lectures, getting student involvement, fair grading and the list goes on. This week touched on a new concern I face as a new teaching assistant, course evaluations.
In the last week I've heard talk of these dreaded course evaluations. Not only can they be heartbreaking to read, but to an extent they determine our continued employment as teaching assistants. I don't think I have much to worry about, but concern always lingers in the back of my mind.
About four weeks ago I did my own course evaluations, as recommended in First Day to Final Grade. I wish I had read the chapter before reading my evaluations. Most of the evaluations were good, but some were cutting. The one I remember most was "Try not to make your lectures so corny". I really was not nor am I still sure what my student meant by this. Further, other students said, "I really like how you incorporate humor into your lecture". I guess that one cutting remark about my lecture held more value than all of the reinforcement. In addition to my lectures students suggested many changes I can not make.
Many students wanted me to change things that I have no control over. Essentially, as McKeachie defines it we are teaching Comm 110 as a multi-section course. I really don't have the power to move the second test from the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and eliminate the review day. If I could, I would because I have other ideas of how I'd rather spend that day too. Basically it comes to a question of authority and power in the classroom.
I can also see elements of McKeachie in how Comm 110 is run from the perspective of a teaching assistant. We follow the suggestions as presented by Mckeachie. We have our weekly meetings, most of us have collected feedback from our students, and have had an observation of our classes. As far as these good recommendations go, there are still issues we face as a group of new teaching assistants. I'd like to re-visit the notion of power and authority in the classroom.
Often times I feel an amount of tension between the amount of control I have over the course content, and the amount of freedom I have as a teaching assistant. I feel that we are often told to make a decision, then are often chastised for the decisions we make. I wish I had a more clearly defined role. I think as the semester rolls on we are all getting an idea of the types of decisions we can make however, I still am uneasy about making an executive decision.
Further, some decisions need to be made somewhat quickly. I don't always have the luxury of getting back to a student. I also don't want to say, "Oh, let me talk with my supervisor to see if I can do that." I think that if I display uncertainty in my job it will undermine my authority in the classroom. I have discovered the phrase "let me think about it and get back to you" can buy me time, but there are some times when I feel a "real teacher" would have an answer and give it immediately. Imposter syndrome anyone?
Basically, I feel like our mentor groups, the 690 course, and the structure of the course can feed into the notion of imposter syndrome that we had in the reading a few weeks ago. I feel that I'm almost the teacher, but not really. I think that having the constants of a watchful eye checking my decision making and limiting my power in the classroom undermines my feeling like a true instructor.
That said, I don't feel that it should all go away. I'm not saying that I know what I'm doing so just let me work. I think there is a large value in having these resources as a new teacher. I just think that it should be more of an atmosphere of collaboration rather than being told what we are to do as McKeachie suggests. I think that if we discussed more issues we would all feel less imposter, and more like we are real teachers who know what they are doing.
I want to move away from the idea that I am purely criticizing our department. During our orientation I got a lot of valuable information. This became very clear at the panel we had to attend for all new teaching assistants. Many of the other departments represented asked questions that we already knew the answers to. Some were so ill prepared they were asking where they could find their syllabus, or if one existed for the course they were teaching. Although this is an extreme example, we went in with knowledge of what was expected, and what to expect.
Our group is generally well prepared, however some things remain ill-defined for us. Smaller issues that we encounter on a day to day basis are bumps in the road, not roadblocks for us. If I, as a better prepared teaching assistant am facing stress, I can only imagine how the student who asked where her syllabus was, is doing about now.
We are real teachers, in the real world. Often we face many tensions, and much stress as new teachers. From course evaluations, to power in the classroom, we have a lot going on. Add that to adjusting to graduate study and it should come as no surprise that many of us are having some trouble adapting. The readings for this week go a long way to ease some of these tensions, along with the resources we have in our mentor groups, Comm 690, and this class.
Helpful links:
Sample Course Evaluation: This link will take you to a course evaluation that another instructor has made. I think it give a good example of questions we should ask our students on a less formal course evaluation. I plan on using this as a guideline for my next round of in-formal course evaluations.
Declassifying student evaluations: This is an interesting article about Cornell University's decision to declassify student evaluations of instructors. I think the article makes some interesting points about the decision, and may be worthy of discussion.
Instructor attractiveness and course evaluations: This article in The Chronicle of Higher Education touches on findings of instructor attractiveness and course evaluations. The article is brief and makes some interesting points.
RateMyProfessors.com: This site is mentioned in the above two links. The site is a way students can evaluate their instructors for other students' use. I checked for myself on this site, luckily I'm not on it...yet.
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This entry took me back to my past life as a GTA at Wake Forest and USC, reminding me of the frustration I felt when my students would criticize the course design or the assignments on my teaching evaluations. "Don't they understand that I have no control over that?," I asked. Apparently not. :)
ReplyDeleteThe upside of being a "teacher in training" is that Dr. Nelson (who reads and comments on all of our course evaluations - faculty included - before we get them back) understands what you can and cannot control. The downside is a lack of agency, particularly when you feel that your class might learn something better using a different method. It's impossible to design a multi-section course that accounts for different students and different teachers, but it's also hard to be "middle management" - having authority over students, but not over the course itself.
I liked the links you posted this week. The concept of "public" course evaluations is an interesting one. What did you think of the number of questions on the informal course evaluation you linked to? I worry that students would get burned out midway through. I also thought that some of the questions ran the risk of making the teacher appear insecure or overly anxious about how well the class was going. Might be a good idea to select just a few of the best questions, lest you overwhelm students (or yourself, when faced with processing that much feedback).
Your teaching blog has shown improvement this semester. You've really excelled at connecting what you are learning to your current teaching experience, and have done a good job approaching the advice in the textbooks with a critical eye. For the remaining entries, I'd like you to focus on bringing a bit more of the textbook into your blog. The easiest way to do this is to summarize an idea when you introduce it, and include the rationale provided by the book.