[Gandhi]

I corrected / edited until the Student Teacher Evaluations Create a Hierarchy of Selfishness


Sir,

This e-mail is in regards to my concerns over the current teacher assessment process.

Every quarter, my classmates and I fill out evaluation reports on our teachers. I feel that this process is detrimental to both our education and to DePaul University.

Student Teacher Evaluations are Ineffective

The reason I attend DePaul University is to gain an education. The role of my teachers in this process is to present pertinent material to be studied (via lectures and other in class methods and assignments) and to ensure that the material is studied (via testing). A teacher that follows these processes will educate his students.

However, students are not capable of effectively evaluating teacher performance. To effectively evaluate performance, a student evaluator should have a thorough understanding of the subject being taught. This understanding is required in order to assess whether the material presented to the students is pertinent to the subject, and that the testing is stringent enough to ensure that the material has been learned. As a result the only truly effective evaluator of a teacher is his superiors and/or peers.

Student Teacher Evaluations hurt DePaul Students

Students are not able to evaluate their teachers on their ability to help students gain an education. The result is that students then evaluate teacher on superficial things such as the teacher's personality or the grade they expect to receive from a teacher.

Teachers who give out good grades liberally (and in doing so render their enforcement of studying ineffective), are more likely to receive positive student evaluations than teachers who do. As student evaluations of teachers are an important factor in tenure reviews for teachers, a strong motivation is created for teachers to give good grades liberally, thus eroding a teacher's willingness to stringently test his students.


.....the Student Teacher Evaluations Create a Hierarchy of Selfishness part needs some work as well. Not a bad letter -

I don't agree though, as a student I felt very well placed to give teacher feedback. Maybe there is just too much weight on them at your school. Also the military analogy is not the best imho, many organization are looking more a getting bottom up feed back as it has its place.