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> as students are graded on their studying skills, I feel like teachers should be graded every fews years on their teaching skills If a teacher grades a stude

> as students are graded on their studying skills, I feel like teachers should be graded every fews years on their teaching skills If a teacher grades a student poorly, there can be repercussions. They have an incentive to grade fairly and accurately. The same isn't true of students, who can grade on feelings and grudges. Teachers are also subject matter experts in the material being graded. Students aren't trained as educators, so why would they be any good at evaluating their teachers? Student evaluations lack even the smallest part of the rigor that they should contain. They are practically worthless.

ergothus 8y ago
> If a teacher grades a student poorly, there can be repercussions. Yes, but the above poster was talking about TEACHING poorly. It is easy enough to expect students to know things at the end of class, but harder to be of use in them learning that material. > Teachers are also subject matter experts in the material being graded. Some are. Maybe even most. But definitely not a universally true statement, particularly in areas where teacher pay is dramatically out of line with industry wages. > Students aren't trained as educators, so why would they be any good at evaluating their teachers? Fair point. But as pointed out by others, there are few other forms of evaluation/accountability. And while a student may not be able to identify WHY they struggled to learn, they can certainly evaluate IF they did. If many students agree, that's a problem best addressed quickly. I teach a university class (just one, my day job is coding) and I've been utterly amazed at the lack of accountability applied to me and my peers. Meanwhile I have friends that teach teens, and the bureaucracy and policies they must follow seem just as bad, but in the opposite direction. If you have a good alternative to student evaluations, please share, otherwise I'll agree with the flaws you listed but still find them better to have than not.
- chithanh 8y ago
  >> Teachers are also subject matter experts in the material being graded. > Some are. Maybe even most. But definitely not a universally true statement, particularly in areas where teacher pay is dramatically out of line with industry wages. So you say that if we find out which teachers are incompetent and actually kick them out, we would need to raise teacher wages to the point of being competitive with the industry? Sounds like a win-win to me.
closeparen 8y ago
Students are the only people who can really evaluate the quality of teaching. Someone with a pre-existing understanding of the material cannot tell whether the class can successfully communicate it to a fresh mind. A few negative evaluations based on personal disputes can be expected. If there are grudges or strong feelings among a large enough proportion of students to meaningfully influence the aggregates, then something really is wrong.
- pas 8y ago
  If other teachers prepared the tests from a shared curriculum for the students, and grading would be by the book (the book would be a living document amended as edge cases arise), then teaching performance could be assessed via the test scores. I have seen this work well for the end of highschool test (prepared every half year), participated on the mailing list purely as an observer (where teachers discussed edge cases - and there was/is a process to get official guidance from the test writer group, but not directly, so that provides a bit of blinding against biases). As long as we try to let teachers cope by themselves (and maybe give them a few TAs in higher ed), and don't make their work testable, we're bound to have wild theories fueled by anecdata.
sethammons 8y ago
They should be a data point. We had a professor let go due to the student evals, and that was a good thing for the university. I can see where the article and op are coming from as a former educator, but there does need to be a feedback loop. The story on our professor. She could not communicate ideas well and proceedures worse. This was a second or third year accounting class. She would present some procedure on calculating some complex set of ratios. Students would be confused and ask for clarification on where different values came from (they seemed to originate from nowhere). She would pause. Look sideways at us. And ask I'd we new how to add and subtract, shake her head, ignore the questions, and move on. Evaluations we're the lever that students had to help correct the system.
dual_basis 8y ago
I absolutely agree, however a separate issue is that most teachers (at the College level) also aren't trained as educators.

ergothus 8y ago

> If a teacher grades a student poorly, there can be repercussions. Yes, but the above poster was talking about TEACHING poorly. It is easy enough to expect students to know things at the end of class, but harder to be of use in them learning that material. > Teachers are also subject matter experts in the material being graded. Some are. Maybe even most. But definitely not a universally true statement, particularly in areas where teacher pay is dramatically out of line with industry wages. > Students aren't trained as educators, so why would they be any good at evaluating their teachers? Fair point. But as pointed out by others, there are few other forms of evaluation/accountability. And while a student may not be able to identify WHY they struggled to learn, they can certainly evaluate IF they did. If many students agree, that's a problem best addressed quickly. I teach a university class (just one, my day job is coding) and I've been utterly amazed at the lack of accountability applied to me and my peers. Meanwhile I have friends that teach teens, and the bureaucracy and policies they must follow seem just as bad, but in the opposite direction. If you have a good alternative to student evaluations, please share, otherwise I'll agree with the flaws you listed but still find them better to have than not.

chithanh 8y ago
>> Teachers are also subject matter experts in the material being graded. > Some are. Maybe even most. But definitely not a universally true statement, particularly in areas where teacher pay is dramatically out of line with industry wages. So you say that if we find out which teachers are incompetent and actually kick them out, we would need to raise teacher wages to the point of being competitive with the industry? Sounds like a win-win to me.

closeparen 8y ago

Students are the only people who can really evaluate the quality of teaching. Someone with a pre-existing understanding of the material cannot tell whether the class can successfully communicate it to a fresh mind. A few negative evaluations based on personal disputes can be expected. If there are grudges or strong feelings among a large enough proportion of students to meaningfully influence the aggregates, then something really is wrong.

pas 8y ago
If other teachers prepared the tests from a shared curriculum for the students, and grading would be by the book (the book would be a living document amended as edge cases arise), then teaching performance could be assessed via the test scores. I have seen this work well for the end of highschool test (prepared every half year), participated on the mailing list purely as an observer (where teachers discussed edge cases - and there was/is a process to get official guidance from the test writer group, but not directly, so that provides a bit of blinding against biases). As long as we try to let teachers cope by themselves (and maybe give them a few TAs in higher ed), and don't make their work testable, we're bound to have wild theories fueled by anecdata.

sethammons 8y ago

They should be a data point. We had a professor let go due to the student evals, and that was a good thing for the university. I can see where the article and op are coming from as a former educator, but there does need to be a feedback loop. The story on our professor. She could not communicate ideas well and proceedures worse. This was a second or third year accounting class. She would present some procedure on calculating some complex set of ratios. Students would be confused and ask for clarification on where different values came from (they seemed to originate from nowhere). She would pause. Look sideways at us. And ask I'd we new how to add and subtract, shake her head, ignore the questions, and move on. Evaluations we're the lever that students had to help correct the system.

dual_basis 8y ago

I absolutely agree, however a separate issue is that most teachers (at the College level) also aren't trained as educators.