Some students will fill out a new student evaluation form this month, which is designed to get a better grasp on what students think of their professors.
It's not clear whether the questions of the experimental evaluation forms will be any more accurate than the ones on the current form are, but the effort should certainly be made. The administration said it hopes that the new questions will help eliminate the chance of professors being rated on the basis of personality rather than teaching ability. While it's true that some professors are able to get away with being bad teachers on their personality, a professor's personality is doubtlessly linked to his or her ability to connect to students and teach them. Surely all students can think of professors who are very knowledgeable but lack the ability to convey their knowledge to their students.
Even more valuable than the evaluation forms are the narrative evaluation forms, in which students are given a chance to list what they liked and disliked about their classes. The narrative evaluations are necessary and should be seen by school administration before being passed to the professors. While professors obviously need the narrative sheets in order to know what to change about their classes, the fact is professors could (and have) arrogantly disregard student reactions. The narrative sheets provide a more detailed and accurate chance for administrators to see what students thought of their professors. With evaluation forms asking only for numerical ratings, it's easy for students to let their feelings on the subject of a class cloud their feelings on the professor of that class.
Since students give a more detailed list of what they liked and disliked in the class, administrators can analyze narrative evaluations to see if perhaps a student's dislike for the subject of the class led him or her to dislike the professor, or whether it was the professor's lectures or class format that led to it. There should be some quality control board or tenure committee that analyzes narrative as well as numerical teacher evaluations in making decisions about raises and firings.
Of course, the effectiveness of teacher evaluations is predicated on students taking the time and effort to give fair and detailed evaluations. The reality is that many students just look at evaltuations as a way to waste 15 minutes of class time. Adjunct professors can be given tenure or fired based on the results of the evaluation forms. Students have the power to raise or sink ships. It's a shame so many students don't give the proper due to that power they have and the responsibility that goes with it.
