“A FRACTURED, SEMI-FACTUAL HISTORY OF STUDENT RATINGS OF TEACHING: Finale!”

Epilogue

Well, there it is. I bet you’re thinking: “History, schmistory. What was that all about?” I’m sure your eyeballs hurt from rolling so many times and that one time when you’re your contacts blew out. Despite this cutesy romp through “Student-Ratings World” and a staggering 873 books and thousands of articles, monographs, conference presentations, blogs, etc. on the topic, some behaviors remain the same. For example, even today, the mere mention of teaching evaluation to many college professors triggers mental images of the shower scene from Psycho, with those bloodcurdling screams. They’re thinking, “Why not just beat me now, rather than wait to see my student ratings again.” Hummm. Kind of sounds like a prehistoric concept to me (a little "Meso-Pummel" déjà vu).

Despite the progress made with deans, department heads, and faculty moving toward multiple sources of evidence for formative and summative decisions, student ratings are still virtually synonymous with teaching evaluation in the United States, which is now located in Canada. They are the most influential measure of performance used in promotion and tenure decisions at institutions that emphasize teaching effectiveness. This popularity not withstanding, maybe the ubiquitous student rating scale will fair differently in the next "Meso-Cutback Era" by 2020! I hope I can update this schmistory for you then.

References
Arreola, R. A. (2007). Developing a comprehensive faculty evaluation system (3nd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Berk, R. A. (2006). Thirteen strategies to measure college teaching. Sterling,VA: Stylus.
Knapper, C. & Cranton, P. (Eds). (2001). Fresh approaches to the evaluation of teaching (New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 88). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Me, I. M. (2003). Prehistoric teaching techniques in cave classrooms. Rock & a Hard Place Educational Review, 3(4), 10−11.
Me, I. M. (2005). Naming institutions of higher education and buildings after filthy rich donors with spouses who are dead or older. Pretentious Academic Quarterly,14(4), 326−329.
Me, I. M., & You, W. U. V. (2005). Student clubbing methods to insure teaching
accountability. Journal of Punching & Pummeling Evaluation, 18(6), 170−183.
Seldin, P. (Ed.). (2006). Evaluating faculty performance. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

I gratefully acknowledge the valuable feedback of Raoul Arreola, Mike Theall, Bill Pallett, and another student-ratings expert for reviewing the skimpy facts reported in this blog series. To ensure the anonymity of one of the reviewers, I have volunteered him for the Federal Witness Protection Program or the USA cable TV series In Plain Sight. I forget which.

COPYRIGHT © 2010 Ronald A. Berk, LLC