Margaret Soltan ponders student evaluations; I generally agree with her view that they largely should be taken with a grain of salt—in large part because you’re simply never going to please everyone. Now that I’m a bit more comfortable in my professorial skin, I don’t worry quite so much about them, but it’s not like I can stop thinking about them any time soon.
Speaking of evaluations, how do folks handle written evaluations in job applications? I’ve only ever included my numeric summaries of evaluations, since I couldn’t figure out any sensible way to include the written evals I have, at least, not in any way that would make it obvious that they were student evaluations instead of figments of my own imagination.
3 comments:
Photo copy the written comments from two courses from the last semester. I would use a basic American Government section and a section of some course relevant to the job posting if I taught one in the last semester….the comments from my methods section, if not.
Hmm. The comments I got from Millsaps were retyped by a secretary (following college-wide policy) specifically so faculty couldn’t identify the students who wrote them from their handwriting. Hence my quandry.
I think that employers would have to take them with a grain of salt especially if you get comments like I did – “take this course, go to class, take the test, get your grade, go home, eat a sandwich” or positive attribute “Tennessean.”