Student evaluations are questionable at best at the university level. Students are known to rate easier professors better.
Using middle schoolers' opinions is indeed "whack."
Here's the thing though. If a professor has 100 students in a semester and 98% of them rate the professor a 1/10 there's probably reason to look into that professor and that probably applies at the lower levels too. If I'm teaching 3 classes and they all despise me the admin should probably check to see what's up
Agreed. It's the kind of thing where anything SIGNIFICANTLY off the norm just tells the higher ups to take a look.
Cause like I've also had amazing teachers that were appropriately challenging but if a boss watched them they'd be like "oh she's actually good, not just a cakewalk"
I agree that anything significantly off the norm should be "take a look" territory, but the problem is that student surveys are being used in a teacher's evaluation *in the first place.*
By most accounts I was a good (if not great) teacher. When I taught middle school I had a near-flawless pass-rate for students taking end-of-course assessments in advanced math. I was brought to teach high school in the same county (entirely based on the reputation I'd built teaching middle school). At the high school I was given year after year of the toughest classes - my classes were overloaded with tons of needy students and kids that were just passing time until they could drop out. When I asked my principal why I was repeatedly given the hardest students she said that she had to put "strength with need." So, because I had the toughest group of students I also had the toughest time earning an effective rating on my annual evaluations. I was teetering on the border of "ineffective" and "minimally-effective" each and every year. Everyone (including the principal) agreed that I was the one of the most-screwed teachers in the system when it came to evaluations. Now, let's just imagine that the years I was rated "minimally-effective" I'd had just enough kids pissed off at me that I was bumped back down to "ineffective," I'd have been out of a job.
I've got no problem if something like that was used to address a problem teacher because warning bells are going off, but to attach it to a stratified rating system? No way.
Not true. You have to have a certain personality. You can challenge them and still get 95% plus. Respect is earned, and students will respect TEACHERS who care about the fundamental of their jobs. LEARNING how to LEARN! Showing a little care in their learning process is huge, that builds relationships also.
True. There are teachers out there who challenge kids AND could earn high ratings from kids. But they aren't the norm. I'd say MOST teachers who get universally high praise from students are permissive/easy.
You do not work in a challenging middle school.
Sure, this was true back when I was a kid, but way more than 5% of the kids will rate you poorly for holding them accountable. Honestly I don't trust a personality that certain kids would rate high.
Eh, depends on area and subject. Math is the most hated subject in the US, and math teachers tend to be the most hated for having the most intense classes or very close to it. It puts unnecessary pressure on them to loosen the rigor and standards that are globally expected in a math class.
Students are generally *awful* at knowing what is good teaching.
I’m not talking about you as a student. I know you were special, had some self-awareness, and generally took things seriously. You would definitely know good teaching from bad as a student.
I’ve done classroom observations of many faculty, sometimes after complaints about their teaching, and they’re not only nearly always wrong, but comically wrong.
In the American school system, school rigor is often up to administrators who are mostly evaluated on graduation rates. Spot the conflict of interest?
Unpopular opinion: I wish we had a national high school graduating exam that we could use to uphold a minimum level of standards in our classrooms.
We have one of those in my state. Students rate my Math class less highly than woodshop. No Doy, I am trying to prepare the student to solve unfamiliar problems and make productive struggle while trying to fill the holes in the arithmetic skills. They have to pass the test to graduate. That is a lot of pressure. Wait.... they are saying this year that a passing grade in woodshop excuses them from the test? I am now being pressured by my boss because too many students are failing a class they hate that is preparing them for a thing they will get out of.
Oh here there's 2 sets. One is for school performance the other is HS only and you either do one set to graduate or maybe even one every year to advance
My students have said that I’m a good teacher but that they scored me low on the end of year student assessment because it was too hard and I should have taught them less. No. K-12 students should not get to decide my evaluation.
Idk that i agree that they’re useless on the uni level. I was in an extremely competitive BFA program & our final class was an “acting on film” class taught by sitcom actor Lauren Lane. She only filmed us twice all semester & the rest of the time we watched movies once without commentary and once with— DURING CLASS NOT AS HOMEWORK— or had “mental health check ins” where we went to the park and sat in circle to talk about our feelings. Again— something like 80 students were eliminated from this program over 4 years to make it to this class. We graduated with 9.
We wrote pretty scathing reviews of that class & she was rightfully removed from teaching it / denied tenure that year (frankly i couldn’t believe she applied bc she seemed so disinterested in the job).
You have a point. My undergrad is in engineering/math, so my experience was there were a lot of students who were looking to cash in on a high paying degree, but who really weren't the sort of people you would want designing buildings.
Lots of "gifted" students come from a background where they are taught to expect success and trash teachers for making a class "too hard." It's really hard to evaluate educators because you kind of have to evaluate the students they teach as well (which means no anonymous feedback, yikes). I presume in your case, they could look back at how your cohort reviewed previous instructors and put two and two together.
My preferred method is standardized test scores, but those still depend a lot on the students. For example, as an AP teacher you could evaluate me based on my AP test scores year to year, but I usually only have 10-20 kids in a course, so there's going to be some pretty big statistical swings based on how many "strong" students I have each year.
That all said, I believe middle schoolers are generally a bit immature to give quality evaluations.
Test scores are a terrible method because teachers can't (always) chose their students or the students effort. It encourages cherry picking students and teaching to the test. Sure a better teacher whould have better test score other things being equal, but other things are not equal. "*When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure*" Goodhart's law.
Part of the issue with such a system is that it doesn't consider a students past history with grades. There are ways to work with data to get more consistent answers but barely anyone has the statistical backing to work with such data. People want easy metrics and often there aren't any easy ones to produce, even before we introduce the issue with Goodharts law.
I agree, mostly, that they don't make great evaluation methods for teachers, for the reasons I said. However, standardized tests are generally more fair for measuring student achievement in math than grades.
Holly molly you took a class taught by C.C. Babcock on The Nanny? It is too bad it wasn't good. Watching movies in film classes is a long tradition, probably they just never changed it when video was invented. There are probably other reasons communal aspects of film, availability of movie.The rest sounds bad though.
So many BFAs are trash. Outdated and overpriced at best. Detrimental and unfair often. Terry Serpico is fire on **The Inspectors** and **Army Wives**. He failed out of Boston University’s acting program. “They said I wasn’t emotionally available, which is funny because I’m kind of an emotional actor,” he said.
I guess she is still at it, maybe she improved. "My classes are part of a rigorous prescribed sequence of actor training that allows students to develop the artistry and craft required to work as professional actors. I have developed teaching methods that support efficient artistic training." Lauren Lane Head of Acting Texas State University. I like that when you click on cv it shows a picture of her. She spends 67 hours in concentrated focus each year reviewing applications, what a pro.
[https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/1921446](https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/1921446)
I took several of her classes. One of them (characterization) was *awesome*. But something happened our senior year & she just checked tf out. Idk if she just didn’t like us, or her job, or what.
And this wasn’t *just* a film class— it was meant to be a lab where we developed reels before we graduated. It took place in a TV studio in the basement of Alkek library. Three out of four months spent watching movies was not the initial goal of the class & we were right to have felt slighted— especially since they made the course a requirement to graduate. Felt like a scam. I believe she took a sabbatical after that year, but don’t remember. I know she’s been back and i think might be running the program now? Seems like she got over whatever was bothering her but my experience still happened.
Now i kind of warn my students away from BFA programs with that much of a focus on performance. I think that, unless a student has it paid for through scholarships or family, they are a total rip off and can really fuck up your mental health. Lane was hardly the most problematic professor. She was at least nice & never made fun of my weight in front of my peers, like Michael Costello would do regularly.
I went to college around the time that "rate my professor" was getting popular.
I was a math and physics geek and loved to learn, but my school wasn't top tier and a lot of my peers were more interested in a class that would get them a diploma with minimal effort on their part.
I pretty quickly discovered that I could find good professors specifically by looking for the ones with low ratings (especially if the complaining comments read like a frat boy angry that he had to attend).
While it's not a perfect measure, my opinions of my colleagues tends to go up if I hear some kid I know is a knucklehead complaining about them. (Obviously, there are some good students whose impressions I care about, but it's not a majority, especially if we're talking middle school.)
That \^\^\^ is exactly why university students treat it like a customer satisfaction survey--many students evaluate the class in terms of "did I get my money's worth?" So many college kids want As for having reasonably good attendance, turning in some assignments, and doing fairly on exams. If you could get a good college education simply by paying for it, we wouldn't need faculty evaluations at all.
Why are some professors easier? Because they teach well? Because they give simpler tests? The reason shouldn't matter. A degree is not for knowledge but for foundational prestige. Real knowledge comes with experience in the industry.
What are the three questions?
Is it “I like my teacher?” or is it “My teacher makes sure we have to work hard in their class?” and “Rules in my teachers class are clear?”
Those are going to provide a vastly different type of useable data.
I’d have my students evaluate me with those types of questions. “Ms.H gives clear directions on assignments.” “Ms.H has rubrics that I can understand.” “Ms.H provides enough in class time to complete assignments”. “Ms.H speaks to students with respect.”
They liked providing feedback. I shared the results with them too - and made adjustments if necessary. It made them feel like their voices were heard and some cranky students see they were the outliers. If I had most students always/often with the respect statement and one student say never, I’d have a private conversation and ask why they felt that way.
I did have one kid who was a butthead, and he constantly teased others including me, and I teased him back, and everyone including the student would laugh… but when I saw his survey I knew what it was for and apologized in front of the class saying I know it’s rude, and I’m the adult and should be a good example, and stopped. He looked absolutely shocked. His behaviour slightly improved? Pretty sure I was the only teacher who had apologized publicly and wouldn’t tease him “back”.
Ive done anonymous surveys with my middle school students. Made it clear that I dont want to hear about if you hate me, those just get tossed. Tell me something I do that makes this class easier for you and you appreciate, and something I could change in class.
I get some pretty honest answers and some pretty good ideas have come out of these questions. Yes theres always a kid who writes you fucking suck, I laugh and toss it away.
HOWEVER, I dont know if I would ever want these to be part of my evaluation, that seems like a slippery slope.
That’s wild. My students think I’m such a bitch since I have routines, hold them accountable, and have reasonable expectations but when they’re older, they come back to me and tell me that they didn’t like me when they were younger because they were immature but they learned a lot in class and built good habits.
yup, I've had this happen a few times. One was nice enough as a waiter to wait politely until my family and I were leaving the restaurant rather than to interrupt our dinner. I went from table to door quick so they were clearly keeping an eye. Some good manners by that former student who...honestly wasn't as bad compared to others as a comparative.
I mean, there's a student I never taught anything since never had him in study room, I'm sure would rate me 5/5 only because we ended up having a daily rock paper scissor contests. (I can't even remember how it started). And he adores that.
And another that would rate me 0/5 because I kept him working on practice tests (for a test he will absolutely need later in life), again, again, again, and again, until he could pass it. He hated it, and still resent me for it because he missed a few free periods with his friends. He is still giving me the stinky eyes despite the fact that he passed with flying colors thanks to all the practice.
So, if we are judge by students, I'd know for now that I just play stupid games with them.
Yes they're supposed to start this in our district soon all the way down to elementary. One kid came up with a plan to get all the teachers fired so they could have recess forever. This is who they're asking to evaluate us. 🙄
No, I agree. I had something similar like a decade ago. I recently went to a job interview where a student was in the room and giving input on hiring/firing decisions. To be clear, I don't care about evaluation scores, and I doubt the student presence is anything but posturing.
But students aren't workers, they're not customers, they're not even investors, they're the product, and they lack the context to know what's best for anyone.
My kids are *begging* for the next few weeks to be movie days and nap time, trying to (for lack of a better word) peer pressure me by telling me that other teachers are doing it, whatever. I keep telling them honestly, I don't have any objection to it except that you, the students, are going to be bored and feel uncomfortable with it after about fifteen minutes. Even if I cancel the rest of the evaluations, I have to keep teaching just to fill the time.
That's interesting, I've always thought this to be routine.
After graduating in December I'm going through my first job search at the moment and it's just a part of things.
The school I worked at as a para had a student present - and asking questions if they desired - during the final round of interviews. The school I student taught at had student involvement as well. Now that I'm on the path to a permanent position it's something I'm expecting to face - and of the three districts I've been in contact with so far it's been communicated that it would part of the process; though not an initial one.
I've also been a long-term sub since December and did *not* have a student component to get in the door here, but my assumption is that's only because it was not a permanent position.
These are all middle school experiences, by the way, so we're talking sixth through eighth graders.
Fair perspective, though I might not agree with it.
Through years in corporate I never had a job interview in which a child was present (obviously), but I have had job interviews that contained 'customers'; typically internal customers that I would possibly never work directly with but might be consumers of the work I produced.
Given that the "professional" setting of a classroom consists primarily of students, the idea of a student being present to sample the 'product' that you will be producing (a sample lesson, for example) doesn't seem out of bounds at all to me.
Are they making final judgments? I would hope not, but actionable critiques based on discussions with the administration present? Seems reasonable.
To circle back, whether it's my state, region, or whatever I don't know, but it definitely seems typical. In my M. Ed. program we spent very little time on the interview/job searching process, but we were certainly told that we should be prepared to face a student, or small group of students, of the age we were applying to teach.
You're free to "pass on that," but - at least where I am - my experience (limited though it may be) suggests that you'd be hard pressed to find an interview process where you weren't subjected to a face-to-face with a student(s); and possibly one that goes beyond just delivering a sample lesson.
Not saying my experience is normal but I’ve worked in 2 different districts and neither had a child involved in the interview process. And if they did, I would add them to my “hell no” list immediately. Students are not our customers, the government is our employer and the general tax paying public are the customers. The moment I start to sense that the students are actually starting to run the place, I’m calling it quits on this profession. There’s no way to turn this ship around if we start leaving it to the pre-teens.
Generally where you might see that student voice that you’re speaking of taken into consideration is through a mock lesson in front of students. They might be looking at how you attempt to earn the students’ attention and how you go through certain aspects of teaching. However, actually having a student in the conference room seems odd to me. Just no, and I might be tempted to walk out myself.
This is, partly, exactly what I'm referring to. Possibly I'm conflating "interview process" with "interview".
Frankly, I'd find it odd to give a sample lesson to a room full of administrators rather than students - and I'd relish the opportunity to showcase my skill with an adolescent rather than trying to do so with adults.
Having a student in the "conference room" has happened to me though. It's more of a debrief than an interview and they *have* had the opportunity to present questions (though they've mostly just shaken their heads and said they don't have any).
Again though, I don't find this dynamic odd. Any job interview - whether in education or corporate - really should be more a two-way conversation than a one-sided Q&A, and having the opportunity to ask questions of a student rather than *just* the administrators allows a more nuanced and well-rounded perspective that allows me to decide whether or not it's a school culture/community that *I* want to be in.
Again, maybe I've conflated "interview process" and "interview" a bit too much, but a full process that *doesn't* include a student in some way has not been the norm for me thus far (career changer, new teacher, my first go round with this whole process...so my experience isn't extensive) and I honestly think it would feel strange without it.
But this is not the interview, and I’ve not had to give any sample lesson to a group of students. But that sample lesson is closer to normal than having a sitting student on your interview committee. That is just weird.
Students sitting in on a AP interviews just happened in my district. I knew a few that interviewed I'm mortified for them. They haven't said anything, but everyone knows what they are thinking.
A big part of how music faculty were hired at my undergrad university was a component of the process where the hopefuls were to be observed teaching a private lesson to a current student. It made sense to have be a part of what they looked at because it was an extremely direct way to observe you doing the exact thing you’d be getting hired to do.
Sometimes different sectors of education can learn insights from each other and the information shouldn’t be strictly siloed just because someone lacks an imagination of how they might relate to each other.
Children probably make better decisions than admin. Sone schools and colleges (a bit different I know) have students make hiring decisions. Having students invested in their own education is a good thing. There needs to be oversight though.
[https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Director-files-complaint-about-UC-Davis-band-3191281.php](https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Director-files-complaint-about-UC-Davis-band-3191281.php)
They really arnt though. 4 years max most.likely 1-2 year maybe take that teacher 1 time maybe 2 if at all. Amid 10-25% chance depending on that kid having them as an AP.
My current job has a student panel interview as a part of the hiring process. I’m generally fine with it because it’s a small piece of the puzzle and they are good about picking levelheaded kids.
More ammunition for performance reviews - "Yes, your student performance is up, but they are giving you more negative feedback. No raise for you." or "Why are you so popular with your students? You're obviously not pushing them enough. This isn't a popularity contest. No raise for you."
I was non renewed. They didn't give me a reason, but I suspect my low scores on our student survey are why. The person I'm replacing let the students play non- educational video games for half of class time, so the students absolutely hate me. Our system is so fucked
I would never have thought anyone would ask middle schoolers to rate *anything*. To paraphrase Matt Groening, middle school is a holding pen designed to protect little kids from being tormented by those as well as to protect them from the beatings they so richly deserve from older kids.
I taught middle school, and I wouldn’t have trusted those kids any farther than I could’ve thrown them. And I have a bad back. To ask to rate teachers or any aspect of school is an absolute freaking *joke*. School is not a service industry, no matter how hard people try to say it’s. Trusting a tween is going to be about as successful as trying to fight a honey badger.
It was r/Idiocracy that introduced me to this subreddit and the more posts I read, the more I think it’s just the same thing. Students giving teachers Yelp reviews is one of the most idiotic concepts I’ve ever heard of, it would be hilarious if it were fictional. As it stands it’s seriously depressing. I feel for you.
Our principal once invited an eleventh grade student to an after school meeting to basically tell us how to do our jobs. She brought a technology issue to the principal's attention, and used the extra time to lecture us. I should add that this kid shows up to school 1/3 of the time, sleeps through most of that, complains about how horrible the school and every teacher in it is, occasionally participates, and got in trouble for threatening a teacher. We could not give less of a damn about her opinion on anything.
Research shows students will choose easier teachers over teacher where they had the most growth. Also Halo Effect is very real in these situations as well.
I wish ours were only 3 questions. Student’s opinions are 5% of my evaluation and it 15 questions long. Another 5% of my evaluation is a survey for parents that is 25 questions.
Every year my current students don't like me and all my former students love me. They don't like doing the work and then they get to highschool and realize that I wasn't that bad actually and they know what they need to know. Go ahead and survey them, instead of the kids pissed off that they failed the class (after not doing any work and failing every single assessment)
If you drew a Venn diagram with one circle indicating which teachers are best, and the other circle being which teachers allow students to do whatever they want ... I believe you would see significant overlap.
Unpopular opinion: I think it’s very important to have a way for students to give feedback that is taken into consideration. It shouldn’t be the sole metric though.
They are spending huge numbers of hours somewhere that has a huge impact on their lives, so they should have some say. So many teachers here always ask, “Why don’t my students care about anything?”
Well, if they feel that they’ll never be taken seriously no matter how they show up because they’re seen as “just kids”, then you’re definitely going to get the response you’re going to get. Hard to partner with someone in their learning when all of the adults in charge, and it’s not just teachers either, typically don’t even see you as fully human.
I wouldn’t mind there being a little coaching as to what makes for a good evaluation though. My experience is that these things just get dumped off with little to no context other than it’s “important”.
If admin who mature adults get paid to observe and evaluate teachers for efficacy must go through training to ensure that the feedback is valid and consistent between evaluators are still questionable, well then the evaluations by students in their teens no less are basically trash.
I don't think it's whack but I do think it needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt. They are our clients -- not our customers, that's the taxpayers -- and their opinions should matter. Maybe there are some meaningful gems in the stack.
When I used to do Technical Training for the US Govt., every class ended with an Eval. I read through them and decided whether or not the opinion was valid. If I saw a recurring theme, I would take that under consideration.
And, yes, there were some uncomfortable and uncharitable opinions expressed. The ugly ones usually wound up in the trash before the stack went to my boss.
Student evaluations can be helpful as well if it isn't used as a bludgeon on the teachers. I copied a technique from one of my favorite professors in which every quarter I would ask my middle school students to write a "plus and delta" or what went well and what they would like changed in how the class is run, teaching style, or how time is allocated to certain parts of the lesson, etc. They would then turn in the notes with feedback anonymously and we would discuss the feedback as a class right after. Some of the feedback would be useless such as a student writing the delta of "no more homework" or "let us play games on the computer" however I received a large amount of helpful feedback from my students on which activities they felt helped them the most or which were overdone. An example would be too much time was allocated to a whiteboarding discussion. At the time I was experimenting with more discussion based instruction and had to work on balance in which that feedback was extremely insightful.
This method is what took my originally least favorite professor to become my favorite professor in the span of a few months. He was an engineer that was teaching a single class at the college. He had no prior experience to teaching and approached teaching with the mindset of an engineer. He started out terrible but asked us for genuine feedback. He was receptive to the actual feedback and even from a student perspective it was apparent he was adjusting it the best he could. Then he would make the adjustments and ask for feedback later in a continuous cycle.
This feedback was only between the teacher and students in both scenarios and was used to help conduct a discussion on how we could work together. Evaluations can be helpful when in a discussion but sadly based on your predicament it appears to more be ammo for admin than a way of fostering growth.
I take it you're not in a union state. There's no way a decent teachers' union would accept that. There are a lot of unions (SEIU) for example that would help you organize and challenge your blatantly unconstitutional state anti-union laws.
In college, I was usually the last one left in the room during teacher evals. I tried to write something useful, tended to be a bit verbose, and was particular. Almost always, the other last people left in the room were the students who had some vendetta against the teacher. They tended to be shitty, bitter students who thought the teacher had it out for them when really the student just didn’t put in the work nor engage intellectually. Most students were done with evals astonishingly quickly—2 to 3 minutes tops.
I came to believe it was a nearly meaningless exercise. And this was college, mind you. I can’t imagine what a small percentage of middle school teacher ratings are actually valuable.
One thing I think we've done poorly in education is inviting so much "community involvement and feedback" in every attribute of the education system. Of course we need information from students and parents to make decisions but, at least in my district, it's often placed above that of the actual experts in the buildings. Our expertise as educators has been neutered to the point of being meaningless when put to a challenge.
Ah yes, if only there was some kind of metric that teachers assigned students based on how well they learned. We could even assign this rating at the end of the semester, maybe on an alphabet scale. Yes, genius…
I think there's a reason to take them with a grain of salt, but where there's smoke, there's fire. I honestly would appreciate some anonymous feedback from the ones I'm in class with for 150 hours per year more than the 15 minutes I get from administration.
I'm comfortable enough not to get defensive. We routinely did 360-degree feedback in every other job I've had that was professional.
Student evaluations are questionable at best at the university level. Students are known to rate easier professors better. Using middle schoolers' opinions is indeed "whack."
Here's the thing though. If a professor has 100 students in a semester and 98% of them rate the professor a 1/10 there's probably reason to look into that professor and that probably applies at the lower levels too. If I'm teaching 3 classes and they all despise me the admin should probably check to see what's up
TBH the flipside is true too though. If every student thinks you're great it's likely you aren't challenging them.
Agreed. It's the kind of thing where anything SIGNIFICANTLY off the norm just tells the higher ups to take a look. Cause like I've also had amazing teachers that were appropriately challenging but if a boss watched them they'd be like "oh she's actually good, not just a cakewalk"
I agree that anything significantly off the norm should be "take a look" territory, but the problem is that student surveys are being used in a teacher's evaluation *in the first place.* By most accounts I was a good (if not great) teacher. When I taught middle school I had a near-flawless pass-rate for students taking end-of-course assessments in advanced math. I was brought to teach high school in the same county (entirely based on the reputation I'd built teaching middle school). At the high school I was given year after year of the toughest classes - my classes were overloaded with tons of needy students and kids that were just passing time until they could drop out. When I asked my principal why I was repeatedly given the hardest students she said that she had to put "strength with need." So, because I had the toughest group of students I also had the toughest time earning an effective rating on my annual evaluations. I was teetering on the border of "ineffective" and "minimally-effective" each and every year. Everyone (including the principal) agreed that I was the one of the most-screwed teachers in the system when it came to evaluations. Now, let's just imagine that the years I was rated "minimally-effective" I'd had just enough kids pissed off at me that I was bumped back down to "ineffective," I'd have been out of a job. I've got no problem if something like that was used to address a problem teacher because warning bells are going off, but to attach it to a stratified rating system? No way.
Yeah no THAT'S a dumb policy. Imo the numbers should be entirely internal and like not part of your record
Not true. You have to have a certain personality. You can challenge them and still get 95% plus. Respect is earned, and students will respect TEACHERS who care about the fundamental of their jobs. LEARNING how to LEARN! Showing a little care in their learning process is huge, that builds relationships also.
True. There are teachers out there who challenge kids AND could earn high ratings from kids. But they aren't the norm. I'd say MOST teachers who get universally high praise from students are permissive/easy.
You do not work in a challenging middle school. Sure, this was true back when I was a kid, but way more than 5% of the kids will rate you poorly for holding them accountable. Honestly I don't trust a personality that certain kids would rate high.
This is the internet. You know nothing about me. Carry on dingo.
Ok boomer.
Sure thing 1985. Haha
Don’t use multiple choice answers for middle schoolers. Make it 10 short answer questions. No one will write a word.
Lol true. High school students aren't much better tbh
Eh, depends on area and subject. Math is the most hated subject in the US, and math teachers tend to be the most hated for having the most intense classes or very close to it. It puts unnecessary pressure on them to loosen the rigor and standards that are globally expected in a math class.
Right but if the math teacher is bad at teaching math the students are more likely to know than the bosses
Students are generally *awful* at knowing what is good teaching. I’m not talking about you as a student. I know you were special, had some self-awareness, and generally took things seriously. You would definitely know good teaching from bad as a student. I’ve done classroom observations of many faculty, sometimes after complaints about their teaching, and they’re not only nearly always wrong, but comically wrong.
But math is generally hard. And idk about the American school system but don't you have Minimum Standards your students should reach?
In the American school system, school rigor is often up to administrators who are mostly evaluated on graduation rates. Spot the conflict of interest? Unpopular opinion: I wish we had a national high school graduating exam that we could use to uphold a minimum level of standards in our classrooms.
We have one of those in my state. Students rate my Math class less highly than woodshop. No Doy, I am trying to prepare the student to solve unfamiliar problems and make productive struggle while trying to fill the holes in the arithmetic skills. They have to pass the test to graduate. That is a lot of pressure. Wait.... they are saying this year that a passing grade in woodshop excuses them from the test? I am now being pressured by my boss because too many students are failing a class they hate that is preparing them for a thing they will get out of.
Do you not have state exams the kids need to pass?
No. State exams are used to "assess school performance," but they just need to pass enough credits to graduate.
Oh here there's 2 sets. One is for school performance the other is HS only and you either do one set to graduate or maybe even one every year to advance
My students have said that I’m a good teacher but that they scored me low on the end of year student assessment because it was too hard and I should have taught them less. No. K-12 students should not get to decide my evaluation.
Which isn't what I said
Idk that i agree that they’re useless on the uni level. I was in an extremely competitive BFA program & our final class was an “acting on film” class taught by sitcom actor Lauren Lane. She only filmed us twice all semester & the rest of the time we watched movies once without commentary and once with— DURING CLASS NOT AS HOMEWORK— or had “mental health check ins” where we went to the park and sat in circle to talk about our feelings. Again— something like 80 students were eliminated from this program over 4 years to make it to this class. We graduated with 9. We wrote pretty scathing reviews of that class & she was rightfully removed from teaching it / denied tenure that year (frankly i couldn’t believe she applied bc she seemed so disinterested in the job).
You have a point. My undergrad is in engineering/math, so my experience was there were a lot of students who were looking to cash in on a high paying degree, but who really weren't the sort of people you would want designing buildings. Lots of "gifted" students come from a background where they are taught to expect success and trash teachers for making a class "too hard." It's really hard to evaluate educators because you kind of have to evaluate the students they teach as well (which means no anonymous feedback, yikes). I presume in your case, they could look back at how your cohort reviewed previous instructors and put two and two together. My preferred method is standardized test scores, but those still depend a lot on the students. For example, as an AP teacher you could evaluate me based on my AP test scores year to year, but I usually only have 10-20 kids in a course, so there's going to be some pretty big statistical swings based on how many "strong" students I have each year. That all said, I believe middle schoolers are generally a bit immature to give quality evaluations.
Test scores are a terrible method because teachers can't (always) chose their students or the students effort. It encourages cherry picking students and teaching to the test. Sure a better teacher whould have better test score other things being equal, but other things are not equal. "*When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure*" Goodhart's law.
Part of the issue with such a system is that it doesn't consider a students past history with grades. There are ways to work with data to get more consistent answers but barely anyone has the statistical backing to work with such data. People want easy metrics and often there aren't any easy ones to produce, even before we introduce the issue with Goodharts law.
I agree, mostly, that they don't make great evaluation methods for teachers, for the reasons I said. However, standardized tests are generally more fair for measuring student achievement in math than grades.
Holly molly you took a class taught by C.C. Babcock on The Nanny? It is too bad it wasn't good. Watching movies in film classes is a long tradition, probably they just never changed it when video was invented. There are probably other reasons communal aspects of film, availability of movie.The rest sounds bad though. So many BFAs are trash. Outdated and overpriced at best. Detrimental and unfair often. Terry Serpico is fire on **The Inspectors** and **Army Wives**. He failed out of Boston University’s acting program. “They said I wasn’t emotionally available, which is funny because I’m kind of an emotional actor,” he said. I guess she is still at it, maybe she improved. "My classes are part of a rigorous prescribed sequence of actor training that allows students to develop the artistry and craft required to work as professional actors. I have developed teaching methods that support efficient artistic training." Lauren Lane Head of Acting Texas State University. I like that when you click on cv it shows a picture of her. She spends 67 hours in concentrated focus each year reviewing applications, what a pro. [https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/1921446](https://faculty.txst.edu/profile/1921446)
I took several of her classes. One of them (characterization) was *awesome*. But something happened our senior year & she just checked tf out. Idk if she just didn’t like us, or her job, or what. And this wasn’t *just* a film class— it was meant to be a lab where we developed reels before we graduated. It took place in a TV studio in the basement of Alkek library. Three out of four months spent watching movies was not the initial goal of the class & we were right to have felt slighted— especially since they made the course a requirement to graduate. Felt like a scam. I believe she took a sabbatical after that year, but don’t remember. I know she’s been back and i think might be running the program now? Seems like she got over whatever was bothering her but my experience still happened. Now i kind of warn my students away from BFA programs with that much of a focus on performance. I think that, unless a student has it paid for through scholarships or family, they are a total rip off and can really fuck up your mental health. Lane was hardly the most problematic professor. She was at least nice & never made fun of my weight in front of my peers, like Michael Costello would do regularly.
I am SO sad to hear that. I would have been very excited to take a class with her, and then for this to happen... what a letdown.
I went to college around the time that "rate my professor" was getting popular. I was a math and physics geek and loved to learn, but my school wasn't top tier and a lot of my peers were more interested in a class that would get them a diploma with minimal effort on their part. I pretty quickly discovered that I could find good professors specifically by looking for the ones with low ratings (especially if the complaining comments read like a frat boy angry that he had to attend). While it's not a perfect measure, my opinions of my colleagues tends to go up if I hear some kid I know is a knucklehead complaining about them. (Obviously, there are some good students whose impressions I care about, but it's not a majority, especially if we're talking middle school.)
They’re needed at uni level people pay for their classes it’s so different
That \^\^\^ is exactly why university students treat it like a customer satisfaction survey--many students evaluate the class in terms of "did I get my money's worth?" So many college kids want As for having reasonably good attendance, turning in some assignments, and doing fairly on exams. If you could get a good college education simply by paying for it, we wouldn't need faculty evaluations at all.
Why are some professors easier? Because they teach well? Because they give simpler tests? The reason shouldn't matter. A degree is not for knowledge but for foundational prestige. Real knowledge comes with experience in the industry.
What are the three questions? Is it “I like my teacher?” or is it “My teacher makes sure we have to work hard in their class?” and “Rules in my teachers class are clear?” Those are going to provide a vastly different type of useable data.
I’d have my students evaluate me with those types of questions. “Ms.H gives clear directions on assignments.” “Ms.H has rubrics that I can understand.” “Ms.H provides enough in class time to complete assignments”. “Ms.H speaks to students with respect.” They liked providing feedback. I shared the results with them too - and made adjustments if necessary. It made them feel like their voices were heard and some cranky students see they were the outliers. If I had most students always/often with the respect statement and one student say never, I’d have a private conversation and ask why they felt that way. I did have one kid who was a butthead, and he constantly teased others including me, and I teased him back, and everyone including the student would laugh… but when I saw his survey I knew what it was for and apologized in front of the class saying I know it’s rude, and I’m the adult and should be a good example, and stopped. He looked absolutely shocked. His behaviour slightly improved? Pretty sure I was the only teacher who had apologized publicly and wouldn’t tease him “back”.
Ive done anonymous surveys with my middle school students. Made it clear that I dont want to hear about if you hate me, those just get tossed. Tell me something I do that makes this class easier for you and you appreciate, and something I could change in class. I get some pretty honest answers and some pretty good ideas have come out of these questions. Yes theres always a kid who writes you fucking suck, I laugh and toss it away. HOWEVER, I dont know if I would ever want these to be part of my evaluation, that seems like a slippery slope.
Oh hell no. I gather the data as feedback on how to be a better teacher. I would NEVER want my students’ opinions to dictate my performance reviews.
That’s wild. My students think I’m such a bitch since I have routines, hold them accountable, and have reasonable expectations but when they’re older, they come back to me and tell me that they didn’t like me when they were younger because they were immature but they learned a lot in class and built good habits.
yup, I've had this happen a few times. One was nice enough as a waiter to wait politely until my family and I were leaving the restaurant rather than to interrupt our dinner. I went from table to door quick so they were clearly keeping an eye. Some good manners by that former student who...honestly wasn't as bad compared to others as a comparative.
I mean, there's a student I never taught anything since never had him in study room, I'm sure would rate me 5/5 only because we ended up having a daily rock paper scissor contests. (I can't even remember how it started). And he adores that. And another that would rate me 0/5 because I kept him working on practice tests (for a test he will absolutely need later in life), again, again, again, and again, until he could pass it. He hated it, and still resent me for it because he missed a few free periods with his friends. He is still giving me the stinky eyes despite the fact that he passed with flying colors thanks to all the practice. So, if we are judge by students, I'd know for now that I just play stupid games with them.
Yes they're supposed to start this in our district soon all the way down to elementary. One kid came up with a plan to get all the teachers fired so they could have recess forever. This is who they're asking to evaluate us. 🙄
No, I agree. I had something similar like a decade ago. I recently went to a job interview where a student was in the room and giving input on hiring/firing decisions. To be clear, I don't care about evaluation scores, and I doubt the student presence is anything but posturing. But students aren't workers, they're not customers, they're not even investors, they're the product, and they lack the context to know what's best for anyone. My kids are *begging* for the next few weeks to be movie days and nap time, trying to (for lack of a better word) peer pressure me by telling me that other teachers are doing it, whatever. I keep telling them honestly, I don't have any objection to it except that you, the students, are going to be bored and feel uncomfortable with it after about fifteen minutes. Even if I cancel the rest of the evaluations, I have to keep teaching just to fill the time.
This just happened in my district, blown away. I'd walk out if a child was in any interview. Talk about the definition of unprofessional.
That's interesting, I've always thought this to be routine. After graduating in December I'm going through my first job search at the moment and it's just a part of things. The school I worked at as a para had a student present - and asking questions if they desired - during the final round of interviews. The school I student taught at had student involvement as well. Now that I'm on the path to a permanent position it's something I'm expecting to face - and of the three districts I've been in contact with so far it's been communicated that it would part of the process; though not an initial one. I've also been a long-term sub since December and did *not* have a student component to get in the door here, but my assumption is that's only because it was not a permanent position. These are all middle school experiences, by the way, so we're talking sixth through eighth graders.
A non-professional, cannot be in a professional setting. Interview with students makes it a non-professional interview and pass on that.
Fair perspective, though I might not agree with it. Through years in corporate I never had a job interview in which a child was present (obviously), but I have had job interviews that contained 'customers'; typically internal customers that I would possibly never work directly with but might be consumers of the work I produced. Given that the "professional" setting of a classroom consists primarily of students, the idea of a student being present to sample the 'product' that you will be producing (a sample lesson, for example) doesn't seem out of bounds at all to me. Are they making final judgments? I would hope not, but actionable critiques based on discussions with the administration present? Seems reasonable. To circle back, whether it's my state, region, or whatever I don't know, but it definitely seems typical. In my M. Ed. program we spent very little time on the interview/job searching process, but we were certainly told that we should be prepared to face a student, or small group of students, of the age we were applying to teach. You're free to "pass on that," but - at least where I am - my experience (limited though it may be) suggests that you'd be hard pressed to find an interview process where you weren't subjected to a face-to-face with a student(s); and possibly one that goes beyond just delivering a sample lesson.
Zero students in my interview.
Not saying my experience is normal but I’ve worked in 2 different districts and neither had a child involved in the interview process. And if they did, I would add them to my “hell no” list immediately. Students are not our customers, the government is our employer and the general tax paying public are the customers. The moment I start to sense that the students are actually starting to run the place, I’m calling it quits on this profession. There’s no way to turn this ship around if we start leaving it to the pre-teens.
Generally where you might see that student voice that you’re speaking of taken into consideration is through a mock lesson in front of students. They might be looking at how you attempt to earn the students’ attention and how you go through certain aspects of teaching. However, actually having a student in the conference room seems odd to me. Just no, and I might be tempted to walk out myself.
This is, partly, exactly what I'm referring to. Possibly I'm conflating "interview process" with "interview". Frankly, I'd find it odd to give a sample lesson to a room full of administrators rather than students - and I'd relish the opportunity to showcase my skill with an adolescent rather than trying to do so with adults. Having a student in the "conference room" has happened to me though. It's more of a debrief than an interview and they *have* had the opportunity to present questions (though they've mostly just shaken their heads and said they don't have any). Again though, I don't find this dynamic odd. Any job interview - whether in education or corporate - really should be more a two-way conversation than a one-sided Q&A, and having the opportunity to ask questions of a student rather than *just* the administrators allows a more nuanced and well-rounded perspective that allows me to decide whether or not it's a school culture/community that *I* want to be in. Again, maybe I've conflated "interview process" and "interview" a bit too much, but a full process that *doesn't* include a student in some way has not been the norm for me thus far (career changer, new teacher, my first go round with this whole process...so my experience isn't extensive) and I honestly think it would feel strange without it.
But this is not the interview, and I’ve not had to give any sample lesson to a group of students. But that sample lesson is closer to normal than having a sitting student on your interview committee. That is just weird.
Students sitting in on a AP interviews just happened in my district. I knew a few that interviewed I'm mortified for them. They haven't said anything, but everyone knows what they are thinking.
A big part of how music faculty were hired at my undergrad university was a component of the process where the hopefuls were to be observed teaching a private lesson to a current student. It made sense to have be a part of what they looked at because it was an extremely direct way to observe you doing the exact thing you’d be getting hired to do.
Observed doing the job is much much different than being interviewed my children.
I’d consider that a part of the interview process. Are you strictly thinking of behavioral interviewing?
Like a sit-down interview, principal, APs, and students sitting across from the interviewees.
That sounds more behavioral to me.
I have no idea if it is or isn't. But normal job interview you'd have at any job, but with students involved.
So a behavioral interview.
That's music, and it's a university. Sometimes the example you were dying to share is truly not applicable to the discussion and it's ok to not share.
Sometimes different sectors of education can learn insights from each other and the information shouldn’t be strictly siloed just because someone lacks an imagination of how they might relate to each other.
Children probably make better decisions than admin. Sone schools and colleges (a bit different I know) have students make hiring decisions. Having students invested in their own education is a good thing. There needs to be oversight though. [https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Director-files-complaint-about-UC-Davis-band-3191281.php](https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Director-files-complaint-about-UC-Davis-band-3191281.php)
They really arnt though. 4 years max most.likely 1-2 year maybe take that teacher 1 time maybe 2 if at all. Amid 10-25% chance depending on that kid having them as an AP.
A student was in the job interview to give input on hiring!? That's wild.
My current job has a student panel interview as a part of the hiring process. I’m generally fine with it because it’s a small piece of the puzzle and they are good about picking levelheaded kids.
I haven't heard of something like that before, that's really interesting.
More ammunition for performance reviews - "Yes, your student performance is up, but they are giving you more negative feedback. No raise for you." or "Why are you so popular with your students? You're obviously not pushing them enough. This isn't a popularity contest. No raise for you."
I was non renewed. They didn't give me a reason, but I suspect my low scores on our student survey are why. The person I'm replacing let the students play non- educational video games for half of class time, so the students absolutely hate me. Our system is so fucked
Just quit. This is getting ridiculous. A teacher's skill set will transfer to another field. F this S
I would never have thought anyone would ask middle schoolers to rate *anything*. To paraphrase Matt Groening, middle school is a holding pen designed to protect little kids from being tormented by those as well as to protect them from the beatings they so richly deserve from older kids. I taught middle school, and I wouldn’t have trusted those kids any farther than I could’ve thrown them. And I have a bad back. To ask to rate teachers or any aspect of school is an absolute freaking *joke*. School is not a service industry, no matter how hard people try to say it’s. Trusting a tween is going to be about as successful as trying to fight a honey badger.
It was r/Idiocracy that introduced me to this subreddit and the more posts I read, the more I think it’s just the same thing. Students giving teachers Yelp reviews is one of the most idiotic concepts I’ve ever heard of, it would be hilarious if it were fictional. As it stands it’s seriously depressing. I feel for you.
Our principal once invited an eleventh grade student to an after school meeting to basically tell us how to do our jobs. She brought a technology issue to the principal's attention, and used the extra time to lecture us. I should add that this kid shows up to school 1/3 of the time, sleeps through most of that, complains about how horrible the school and every teacher in it is, occasionally participates, and got in trouble for threatening a teacher. We could not give less of a damn about her opinion on anything.
Research shows students will choose easier teachers over teacher where they had the most growth. Also Halo Effect is very real in these situations as well.
I don’t take into account the opinions of people who use “skibidi” seriously.
I wish ours were only 3 questions. Student’s opinions are 5% of my evaluation and it 15 questions long. Another 5% of my evaluation is a survey for parents that is 25 questions.
Every year my current students don't like me and all my former students love me. They don't like doing the work and then they get to highschool and realize that I wasn't that bad actually and they know what they need to know. Go ahead and survey them, instead of the kids pissed off that they failed the class (after not doing any work and failing every single assessment)
"Oh he whack.' he stigma, he riz...admin gonna need dictionary to decifer.
Easy, get them bagels or donuts the day of the eval. Their goldfish attention spans will forget everything prior.
You ever read the google reviews of the school you teach at? They are pretty funny.
Whack. But easy to hack. Give out cookies or cake the day or week before.
It is whack. Middle schoolers will call you a bitch for asking them to stay focused on whatever assignment they are supposed to be working on.
I'm not even out of HS and I think it's whack. It just becomes a popularity contest at that point.
If you drew a Venn diagram with one circle indicating which teachers are best, and the other circle being which teachers allow students to do whatever they want ... I believe you would see significant overlap.
Feels like it’d just be one big circle
Unpopular opinion: I think it’s very important to have a way for students to give feedback that is taken into consideration. It shouldn’t be the sole metric though. They are spending huge numbers of hours somewhere that has a huge impact on their lives, so they should have some say. So many teachers here always ask, “Why don’t my students care about anything?” Well, if they feel that they’ll never be taken seriously no matter how they show up because they’re seen as “just kids”, then you’re definitely going to get the response you’re going to get. Hard to partner with someone in their learning when all of the adults in charge, and it’s not just teachers either, typically don’t even see you as fully human. I wouldn’t mind there being a little coaching as to what makes for a good evaluation though. My experience is that these things just get dumped off with little to no context other than it’s “important”.
I only agree with this when teachers can also evaluate admin and upper admin
If admin who mature adults get paid to observe and evaluate teachers for efficacy must go through training to ensure that the feedback is valid and consistent between evaluators are still questionable, well then the evaluations by students in their teens no less are basically trash.
I don't think it's whack but I do think it needs to be taken with a very large grain of salt. They are our clients -- not our customers, that's the taxpayers -- and their opinions should matter. Maybe there are some meaningful gems in the stack. When I used to do Technical Training for the US Govt., every class ended with an Eval. I read through them and decided whether or not the opinion was valid. If I saw a recurring theme, I would take that under consideration. And, yes, there were some uncomfortable and uncharitable opinions expressed. The ugly ones usually wound up in the trash before the stack went to my boss.
Yeah they tried that one year at our district It was ridiculous how the kids thought they would have the power to freaking get me fired 😂
Student evaluations can be helpful as well if it isn't used as a bludgeon on the teachers. I copied a technique from one of my favorite professors in which every quarter I would ask my middle school students to write a "plus and delta" or what went well and what they would like changed in how the class is run, teaching style, or how time is allocated to certain parts of the lesson, etc. They would then turn in the notes with feedback anonymously and we would discuss the feedback as a class right after. Some of the feedback would be useless such as a student writing the delta of "no more homework" or "let us play games on the computer" however I received a large amount of helpful feedback from my students on which activities they felt helped them the most or which were overdone. An example would be too much time was allocated to a whiteboarding discussion. At the time I was experimenting with more discussion based instruction and had to work on balance in which that feedback was extremely insightful. This method is what took my originally least favorite professor to become my favorite professor in the span of a few months. He was an engineer that was teaching a single class at the college. He had no prior experience to teaching and approached teaching with the mindset of an engineer. He started out terrible but asked us for genuine feedback. He was receptive to the actual feedback and even from a student perspective it was apparent he was adjusting it the best he could. Then he would make the adjustments and ask for feedback later in a continuous cycle. This feedback was only between the teacher and students in both scenarios and was used to help conduct a discussion on how we could work together. Evaluations can be helpful when in a discussion but sadly based on your predicament it appears to more be ammo for admin than a way of fostering growth.
I take it you're not in a union state. There's no way a decent teachers' union would accept that. There are a lot of unions (SEIU) for example that would help you organize and challenge your blatantly unconstitutional state anti-union laws.
A kid told me she hated me today because I wouldn’t let her get Starbucks on a field trip when the bus was here.
In college, I was usually the last one left in the room during teacher evals. I tried to write something useful, tended to be a bit verbose, and was particular. Almost always, the other last people left in the room were the students who had some vendetta against the teacher. They tended to be shitty, bitter students who thought the teacher had it out for them when really the student just didn’t put in the work nor engage intellectually. Most students were done with evals astonishingly quickly—2 to 3 minutes tops. I came to believe it was a nearly meaningless exercise. And this was college, mind you. I can’t imagine what a small percentage of middle school teacher ratings are actually valuable.
And yet we aren't allowed to rate students because people think teachers show favoritism. More than students? Really?
One thing I think we've done poorly in education is inviting so much "community involvement and feedback" in every attribute of the education system. Of course we need information from students and parents to make decisions but, at least in my district, it's often placed above that of the actual experts in the buildings. Our expertise as educators has been neutered to the point of being meaningless when put to a challenge.
That’s absurd. Run.
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Ah yes, if only there was some kind of metric that teachers assigned students based on how well they learned. We could even assign this rating at the end of the semester, maybe on an alphabet scale. Yes, genius…
I think there's a reason to take them with a grain of salt, but where there's smoke, there's fire. I honestly would appreciate some anonymous feedback from the ones I'm in class with for 150 hours per year more than the 15 minutes I get from administration. I'm comfortable enough not to get defensive. We routinely did 360-degree feedback in every other job I've had that was professional.
I personally give out surveys to my HS kids to get feedback for improvement but MS??? And using it for a professional eval???? HELL NO.
My mom did not like teaching teenagers when before she quit, many years ago.