Module evaluations kick in teeth

[Mumteedum]

After two years of stress through covid, and five years as programme leader, I've been diagnosed with a chronic health condition which thankfully my line manager supported with a reduction in teaching. I've now stepped down as programme leader and it's been a big year if adjustment for me with a huge knock in confidence.

I've now just had my module evaluations and one class in particular have absolutely shredded me. They're not a large class but behaviour had been awful. Polite requests to not talk over me during lectures have been met with eyerolls and beligerance.

I have never had an evaluation as bad as this. Usually mine are really good and this has really knocked me. I feel so resentful that I still have to face them and teach and support them but they can behave however they like with no consequence.

I'm a middle aged woman. I know stats say there is gender bias. It's a male dominated subject. I know I'm not the young cool one anymore ( if I ever was). They said other lecturers asked them to be quiet but I demanded silence (untrue). That I repeated content from other modules ( if so, my colleagues were not criticised for doing so, repeating my content..and I have previously checked with them as to what they cover).

I should be stronger than this but really struggling to shrug it off. I guess I'm just after some empathy from this thread, if that's ok? I'm feeling really vulnerable from being ill anyway and this has knocked me down even more.

It's hard not to take the evaluations personally but you can't internalise them. They fill these evaluations in with little thought. I lead a professional programme and had to address their lack of professionalism last year when it came to giving feedback. I think shifting to online learning also made us seem inhuman to them and this was definitely reflected in feedback.

Thank you @Libertybear80. It feels very personal as their comments (at least two who wrote a lot) were a total misrepresentation of the truth and were personal comments. I'm struggling to know how to deal with having to teach them again, knowing what they think of me.

I'm usually more resilient but have never had personal comments like this and at a time when I am feeling quite vulnerable with my health.

Have you asked your colleagues if they’ve also had a number of awful evaluations this year? A small number of disgruntled students may have written nasty evaluations for many of/all oftheir lecturers.

Complaining that you asked them to be quiet and listen isn’t a comment that you need to take seriously. Why the fuck do they think it’s ok to chat through lectures/tutorials.

My teacher friends favorite trick is just to sit there looking at his watch and wait for them to be silent rather than talking over them to tell them to keep it down. The last talkers feel bad when they realize all their peers and waiting for them to shut up and a little humiliated that the entire room probably heard whatever their last sentence was.

Thanks for your post @Thewheelsfalloffthebus. I haven't spoken to colleagues yet as we're taking some leave this week and next. I know a couple of them had issues in-class but my evaluation singled me out saying other lecturers had told them to keep it down but I had demanded silence or treated them like children. (Not true about silence. Sort if true but not how I wanted it and had treated them like adults and been ignored, about dealing with them like children). I will admit, I did exactly what your colleague did! They clearly didn't appreciate it. I have never had to do behaviour management though before to this extent. One really shouldn't have to with adults! I started out as I've always done and just asked them to lower the noise level because I was struggling to hear the student I was doing one to one with. Large group of males with booming voices and some quietly spoken female students, plus I have dreadful tinnitus and a noisy lecture room with windows open. ..not am easy combination.

Anyway, I guess I will use Easter to try and regain my composure and work out my response.

My confidence is low at the moment.

i empathise with the tinnitus. It's making my life hell.
Like you, my evals have been disappointing. However, i ve made peace with the fact that i cannot please everyone and accepted the unfair crappy evals for what they are. I ll also rejoice that this dip in popularity will mean a lesser uptake of my optional module...

OP, I never read evaluations without a glass of wine in hand! Good students just tick boxes that all ok; a few weak ones will write personal attacks and it feels that these are the majority, when they are not!

Covid didn't help. In my uni, some students became physically aggressive and had to be escorted off campus. I think it has been hard on everyone. They take it out on you.

It's not you. Don't think about it! If they offer anything constructive (better mic, more pics in slides, etc) take it on board. But complaints about having to keep quiet? Come on. This is the minimum. I wouldn't speak if students are chatting, ever

Huge sympathies @Mumteedum

I'm a veteran of bad evaluations - I'm an older woman, and as a fairly senior member of the department, I do a lot of covering of the core & compulsory lecture modules, to enable others to forge ahead on their more bespoke research-led seminar courses.

I get called arrogant, boring, whatever ... in those modules. When I get the chance to teach from my research, I get stellar reviews & teaching nominations. The big core course evaluations used to make me very upset.

It's weird - I can take really damning rigorous criticism of my research & writing (even quite nasty personal comments on occasion), and it washes off - I tend to think "Oh yes, fair cop, I should have looked at that. Thanks for the feedback, it's really useful".

But I find student evaluations really personally hurtful. I think because the students are so unexpert, as opposed to peer reviewers!

We found in one year group that there was a small group of privileged (mostly) boys, who were quite arrogant about what they thought they needed to know to study our discipline, and they were a sort of ginger group spreading dissatisfaction.

So remember they are immature 18 year olds.

The thing to check in with your line manager might be around whether or not such evaluations have any influence or impact on your career & promotion etc. If that is the case, then Go.To.Town on the inherent sexist bias of these evaluations. There's a lot of research out there which suggests that they are not reliable as a marker of good teaching.

But mainly, big hugs - it's horrible to read this stuff about what we put our energies & care into

@Disacappointment thanks for making me laugh about your optional module uptake strategy

@microbius that's shocking about physical aggression. I hope staff have been supported. Not talking ever seems like what I would end up with with that group.

@ExMachinaDeus thanks for the hugs! Much needed. Having rough time anyway. I don't need kicking more. You're right about it being a group of arrogant males although shockingly the worst one is a mature student...at least in age if not attitude.

Feeling a bit better today about it. I shared a particularly spiteful comment with my colleague today and he was really disgusted on my behalf and said we should take it further somehow.

It's a lack of empathy and sense of entitlement from this particular group.

Sympathies OP, that's miserable of them. I guess it feels worse because you know them, while article reviews are more remote. Try not to take it too personally. Like everyone has said, you're an older woman, so immediately at a disadvantage.

There used to be a fabulous American website called "College misery" it developed from a website called "Rate your students" which was an hilarious response to "Rate your Professor"

Their mantra was:
Never care more for your students’ education than they do.

It’s pretty cynical, but can be helpful in this sort of situation.

I’m glad your colleague thought the evaluations were out of order. Students need to remember we’re training them for professional life, when such statements are unacceptable.

Here’s an entry to RYS on this subject:

rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/2006/11/on-student-evaluations_918.html?m=1

@ExMachinaDeus that's good! I love the slogan too. So so true. I told my younger colleague this many times when they've been preparing hours and hours of bespoke video feedback each week. (Deaf ears. They're still wanting to be loved and bringing in cakes etc. Probably doesn't help that we're a small team and I don't spoon feed or do that. So students are bound to make a comparison. I need to just adjust my head and be ok with not being liked by students. Sigh. )

I’m sorry, it’s brutal. I know exactly how much more personal teaching evaluations are compared to paper reviews or grant rejections. They do sound a difficult bunch but try your very hardest to put it behind you

This is my first ever round of disappointing MEs. One student said that the feedback on their assessments wasn't timely. I released both sets of feedback early! One a full week before grades were due to be released.

It's made me realise that you just can't please everyone.

It's been a punishing semester, and I think the students feel it too.

I'm trying to be zen about it. I have to write a report that addresses the negative comments, it's just so silly, isn't it? I have to screen shot the date the the feedback was due to be released and then screenshot the dates the feedback was released. What a waste of time.

They’ve admitted in their evaluations that the noise level in class was something multiple lecturers had to address??

Sounds like the students have shot themselves in the foot there tbh. I’d want to go on the attack and would be complaining to the programme director that this class has significant behavioural problems, you had assumed it was just in your lectures and you had been forced to deal with it with increasing severity but now you realise that actually their behaviour has been poor throughout!

@JuneOsborne

This is my first ever round of disappointing MEs. One student said that the feedback on their assessments wasn't timely. I released both sets of feedback early! One a full week before grades were due to be released.

It's made me realise that you just can't please everyone.

It's been a punishing semester, and I think the students feel it too.

I'm trying to be zen about it. I have to write a report that addresses the negative comments, it's just so silly, isn't it? I have to screen shot the date the the feedback was due to be released and then screenshot the dates the feedback was released. What a waste of time.

It sure is. Mine have frankly out and out lied on theirs. It's like a parallel universe. We have a new system though that we no longer have to write a report....we have to respond directly through the online survey system to let students know how we will respond to their feedback. I'm not clear on whether this means all students now see the full module survey results. Not a good system if so.

At least the old management facing reports had space for our own reflection on learning and teaching which was helpful come planning and report writing time.

Aggh on your behalf, I am so sorry @Mumteedum. Unit evaluations are deadly and agree that you get those moaning who are unhappy but rarely hear from those who are happy. On a unit we team teach, a few years ago I got amazing ratings yet had not taught the class yet on that unit (had on others). That said it all to me. Totally unrepresentative!

I hope you can take a break over Easter. I take these things personally too and can see whyyou would be upset. It's really shit to be honest. I don't understand why adults can't behave.

Don't take evaluations too personal, and there are unhappy students in every cohort.

If and when students talk and disturb in my class, I tell the individual student or gang to "leave the class, finish the conversation, and come back if you want."

Thank you, today was not too bad being back at it after a break. But then the student awards have come out (yay, more judgement) and my younger colleague nominated (again) and never me these days. Menopause and chronic illness is reeking havoc with my self esteem. I go from not giving a toss to feeling like a total failure.

Please don't take it personally, you do get cohort effects. Ours are scored out of 5. One year I had 4.9, following year, same module, same materials etc 3.5. 4 is deemed acceptable (don't get me started). I was freaking out until we met for our module review meeting and everyone had similar stories with scores down across the board and multiple tales of a difficult year. I think most people turned up to graduation just to be sure that year group were leaving. A couple of dominant personalities can really swing things.

I know one academic who got this - awful MEs riddled with really sexist comments. She decided to take the bull by the horns, and pinned the most egregious examples up on the notice boards in the departmental corridor. I thought this was really brave and a good way of turning the tables to show that she wasn't cowed by their personal attacks. Shame on them, not on her. But I can see that approach isn't for everyone.

You have my sympathies OP. It's so demoralising when you put so much effort in and the students are rude and thoughtless.

A couple of dominant personalities can really swing things.

Yes, I've experienced that.