Did you know that the results of the official,
university sanctioned end-of-term feedback sessions are kept on record
in the GRC? I did an informal survey recently and not one person out of the dozen or so I asked knew this – not even the ones I was sure would should know about it.
Personally, I heard about them from a prof early in first term and have ended up consulting the results a few times during my time here, usually right around the time I'm picking classes. So obviously they're not secret – it's just that no one promotes them as a good source of information about the courses and professors here.
Student Council is in the midst of revamping the mid-term evaluation process so that inspired me to go and look at them today. I was surprised to see that not only were the results of
our winter classes on file but so were our summer ones (for some reason, I thought
they held back the release of the results for six months but I guess
once the marks are submitted, the feedback summaries are distributed.)
Although the
written feedback you give as part of the official process isn't available, the marks you give to each professor in all ten or so
categories on the scale of 1-7 are compiled and given averages. Plus the ranks for all ten categories are given an overall average at the bottom of the summary sheet so you can get a pretty accurate
sense of how the whole class felt about a course.
Because they're
available in the GRC to any student who asks (and because they won't
mean anything to any non-FIMS person who reads this), I'm going to
reprint the averages for the classes I've taken so far (but without professor
names attached.)
Class Evaluation Averages for My Courses in Winter and Summer Terms (/7)
501 – 4.8
502 – 6.6
503 – 3.7
504 – 5.8 for one instructor, 4.9 for the other who co-taught it
505 – 4.5
506 – 3.3
525 – 6.1
566 – 6.7
746 – 5.6
(My tenth
course was an independent study so I didn't get to do an evaluation for
it. But my supervisor was the same person who got that 6.7 so you
can imagine how much I enjoyed it!)
Overall, the average for courses I've taken (including the jointly taught one) is 5.2. I suspect this is right in line with what the average of all the classes FIMS offers each semester would be – some are higher, some are lower but they tend to cluster around the 5.0 mark – “solidly average” you might say.
My big frustration is that my two lowest ranked courses by far – 503 and 506 – were both required courses where I had no choice about when I could take it or who the professor was that I would take it with (although to be fair, both were with first-time FIMS instructors so I couldn't have found out about them via evaluation marks – even if I wanted to.)
But without these two, my personal average would jump to 5.6 which is getting away from that 5.0 “solidly average” mark and is heading for the 6.0 “pretty exceptional” range (and tell me I didn't learn anything in stats!)
Anyhow, do I have a point with all this? I guess this just reinforces a personal rule I developed as I went through the program, namely: “A good professor teaching a
class you have no interest in will be vastly more valuable than a bad professor
teaching a class you're really interested in.” In fact, I would go so far as to say that, because the final average is taken from the impressions of the entire class over a wide range of categories, 99% of the averages are going to match up very closely with whether you too will find the professor to be good, bad or average.
So keeping both of those things in mind, my suggestion is that it's worth taking a quick glimpse at these rankings around the time of your next class selection process. Those 6.0+ classes I've taken were all amazing classes (including one
required class I didn't have high hopes for initially based solely on the subject being taught) so in my opinion, it's also well worth it to try to
register for the high-ranked classes as much as possible.
(Oh, and just so you know – the results are kept in a big black binder behind the desk in the GRC labelled “Course Evaluations”. Tell 'em Jason sent you! 😀)
Comments 8
My problem with the averages is that you don't get the whole story, or even a particularly accurate one. It is in the comments that valuable feedback is to be had, and we never see those. There's also a really backwards-looking mentality to it. No impetus for change. No sense of “can we do better?” Just, “how was it that time around?” Especially when few profs teach the same course back to back (or so it seems), do the marks necessarily mean anything? If an instructor got a below-average score (and how nice that “solidly average” is what we're aiming for, eh?), should we take it as a warning sign not to take their course, or should we give them the benefit of the doubt that they will self-reflect enough to listen to the feedback and make the necessary changes? The cynic in me says “run for the hills” – the profs aren't going to change until or unless they need to, by which I mean administration also sees the comments and things like salary or tenure are on the line. It seems to me that students deserve a higher standard of teaching than 5.0, and the instructors who consistently achieve higher than that deserve more recognition than they get. Some of the best instructors – with the highest marks – are not eligible for faculty awards because they are not full-time/professor status. So, yeah, check out the marks in the black binder. But, also, if you have a good prof NOW, don't wait until the term is done to let them or others know about it. Thank them every chance you get. Because Jason is right – teaching style can make or break a course and how much you learn from it. The most glowing comment I ever gave was “I would seriously consider taking a course which I had little or no interest in if (s)he were teaching it.”
Here endeth the rant.
Are these scores out of 7? Must be. I agree with Barb in that these #s must be taken with a grain of salt. As averages. For instance, I really liked the 501 prof, and likely rated that prof higher than the final score of 4.8…There often is some informal chit chat about profs and courses that happens at the Grad Club usually, or even in the Grad Lounge. In fact, I took part in a brief conversation yesterday as one of my co-hort told me one of her profs this semester is awesome! And I wish I'd taken that course…But if she shares this info again in a wider venue (say the Grad Club, loudly, with a raised glass toasting the prof, and the prof is teaching next semester (it's Gopal!!) i'm sure she'd give everyone thumbs up on any course Gopal teaches/invents!
Here's to greater communication between co-horts and the various semesters! Gotta make it out to the Trivia nights — I'm sure trivia beyond the brain testers is shared!
Linda B.
I would never say that you should base your whole selection on these rankings but they definitely can have a role as long as you recognize that these are an aggregate of the entire classes' feelings. And if a prof is respected enough to garner a 6+ from the whole class, that says a lot. The problem with our 501 prof (who I liked quite a bit as well!) was that he was a fairly polarizing figure within the class and his marks reflect that. The other thing the sheets in the GRC show is how the marks broke down – how many gave a 1, a 2, a 3 and so on up to 7 – so you can see if a prof in the 5.0 range (for example) has a lot of high and a lot of low marks or if they tend to cluster in the middle. Then you'll know if they're a polarizing figure or just “solidly average” (man, THAT should be a t-shirt slogan for library school!)
I agree with Barb that another frustration is the lack of accountability. The mid-terms carry no weight (there's a horrible story of an unnamed prof walking out of the room before his evaluation saying “go ahead and say what you want – it won't affect me”) and the official end-of-term ones should but don't seem to carry weight either. Or if they do, it's too late for the people who suffered through the class for a semester.
I don't know – you can probably sense that I'm resisting the urge to go on a massive rant here. Being the Academic Rep has made me *more* aware of the problems and how difficult they'll be to change rather than allowing me to make some improvements. But what might be an improvement for students (ie. having all profs involved in the mid-terms rather than asking them to opt in) might not be seen as an improvement by the professors who don't want to be judged by students (even as they have complete ability to judge us – tell me that participation marks aren't often a joke in this place.) Grrrr!
Yes, I agree that getting comments directly from other students is more informative than just numbers, though I'd certainly take a class from any prof who scores above six! So it's good to know about the course evaluations in the GRC – you can add me to the list of people who didn't realize they were there, Jason. Now that I think of it, I have a vague idea they were mentioned early in our first semester, and I just didn't remember.
That's why I'd like to see the Student Council with a public web site and integrated discussion board (maybe we could integrate the one you set-up since it's already in place?) I'm sure some students would put their thoughts about profs on there, especially after they convocate and have less concern about repercussions of honestly commenting on which profs are good and bad around here. It sometims feels like a double standard – profs are constantly evaluating us with marks and “participation points” but we don't get to evaluate them except at the end of term when it doesn't matter anymore.
You can use that board if you'd like – I certainly don't mind if you do. I can even pass on the admin username/password if the student council wants to take it on.
I do think a public site for the student council is a good idea. Too much stuff – like the course timetable – gets put on the intranet at FIMS, where alumni and prospective students can't get at it. Especially frustrating for the prospective students, I think.
If you don't mind, pass along the info by e-mail (jason@hammond.net) and then, at least I'll have it. I'm not sure if we'll make much progress towards a new public site this term but it's definitely a long term goal for student council.
Hey – why don't YOU go on student council for the webmaster position if it's available when you come back (saw you got a co-op extension – congrats!) Or are you going to be in New Zealand or something? I'll have to re-read your blog to get the timeline straight. But yeah, if you're around, you'd have the mad skillz the job requires!
Maybe I will! I'll be around next summer – New Zealand will be after that. 🙂