I'm not sure those two purposes are necessarily independent. When we write
up our annual summaries the teaching evaluations are only a part of what is
presented for teaching effectiveness. Program development, teaching
innovations, evaluations by colleague, as well as advisement are also
discussed. It's my understanding that many schools are looking at more than
student evaluations when teaching effectiveness is evaluated.
Gary J. Klatsky, Ph. D.
Department of Psychology [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Oswego State University (SUNY) http://www.oswego.edu/~klatsky
Oswego, NY 13126 Voice: (315) 312-3474
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey Nagelbush [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2001 9:04 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: course evaluations
"Gary Klatsky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>I'm not sure that the portfolios are meant to be a means of comparing your
>class to another. I also don't believe that student evaluations provide
>information about the quality of your courses. Unless you include a
>measure
>of student outcomes, you can never tell how your course compares to another
>section of the same course.
>
I have two thoughts on this thread and Gary's message in particular. First,
as Gary implies, we need to be careful to distinguish the 2 purposes for
evaluation, improvement and tenure/promotion/merit/... The portfolio seems
like it might be a reasonable source of information for improvement, but not
necessarily a good (or valid) source of information for the more
"evaluative" sorts of evaluation.
Second, since folks are discussing Nitop, I would like to point out that
Robert Bjork gave an interesting talk in which he suggested that those
teaching or training procdures that produce the best short-term effects are
often not the same teaching or training procedures that produce the best
long-term retention and transfer. These suggestions make me wonder. If we
are going to include student outcome measures in our evaluations, when
should we measure the outcomes? At the end of the course? Or perhaps a
month, or a year, later?
Jeff Nagelbush
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Ferris State University
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