Module Evaluation Support Thread

[Mumteedum]

This time last year.......I was so upset by module evaluations. I had some support on here. Well.....here it is again.

I am just back from compassionate leave. My Dad just died. I've looked after my course single handed with a herd of temp lecturers to try and keep on straight and narrow, all on my part time contract....

My ONE module this semester had to be covered by other staff for a few sessions due to my Dad inconveniently dying in the middle of it and despite platitudes from students.... 3 of them have shredded me again...which constitutes half of respondents.

It's like those offsted teachers pushed over the edge. I'm in floods of tears. Maybe I should just get signed back off. What a fucking welcome back.

I know it's bollocks. It still squashes me. I used to get 100%. I'm exhausted.

Tell me your shit comments and why we shouldn't give a shit and we are actually brilliant caring professionals. I need to hear some niceness...even if you don't know me and for all you know, I'm shit like they say.

Hi! I am really sorry you feel so down. Commiserations, I have been there. You seem to be teaching similarly small modules to me if you only have six respondents - how big is the module on the whole. And then, of course, with so few respondents, three shredding you is unrecoverable in terms of overall score.

So... deep breath. Half the respondents did not shred you (and probably had a lot of positive things to say). The silent majority of your module did not take part in the survey, so probably did not have any strong feelings at all.

Deep breath, gather yourself. Talk to a colleague you trust. When you have gathered your thoughts, check which student comments are reasonable and you could potentially act on and which ones are not. Discuss what changes you could make with your head of L&T or somebody else who could support you.

Just for context: I have taught the same module for more or less 10 years. Normally, really good ratings, but one year they just dropped. I hadn't changed a thing about the module. The year after it was all fine again.....

Oh you poor thing. I'm so sorry about your Dad. I lost mine a couple of years ago and would have really struggled if I'd been teaching at the same time - I was on maternity leave which made things a bit easier.

Small cohorts are very difficult I've found. Just had my worst ever evaluation from a group of 5 students - one in particular seems to have scored me at the lowest tick box for everything. They gave great evaluations last semester and then tanked their exams so I think I'm just feeling the brunt of that. Same material (more or less) taught to a larger undergrad cohort and the evaluations are glowing.

In short, everyone knows evaluations are nonsense, for all the usual reasons. Your colleagues know you and know you're good at the job.

And sometimes a shit evaluation just means you challenged them rather than spoonfeeding and that's something to be proud of.

But, if you're not ready to be back at work then you absolutely need to take some time.

I just got a really shitty one. One person loved the make tutor on the class. I on the other hand was superficial, below par, hogged the time etc. Couldn't make it up. But it gets to me too. And I feel like giving up.

Coming for some support. I'm a relatively new lecturer (under 3 years teaching) and my students have complained. I'm convinced my colleagues think I'm incompetent as well. I have no one to talk to about it all and I feel very alone.

I remember when I first started lecturing I was going through the hard copies of the module survey and one 'strongly disagreed' with every statement but did not add anything to the comments section. My mentor popped in and when I told her about it she just scrunched it up and put it in the bin saying 'ridiculous'. Not very ethical but did make me laugh and helped get me out of the doldrums.

It is really unpleasant OP but I would try not to take it too much to heart - it's only 3 students. Was there a high or low response rate? All of mine have v low response rates- in semester one I had 12/110 on one module. Of the students who replied most were v happy and a couple were v unhappy. I don't think that would be representative of the cohort - it's just those who were most enthusiastic or most negative about the module were motivated to complete the survey.

So totally with you - I can take extremely robust criticism of my research, but I am probably over sensitive to student criticism of my teaching.

I think it's because I put so much of myself in an informal way into my interactions with students, whereas my writing is more distanced and professional.

And also that students can be total fuckwits about how they think they should be taught. But really, how much do they actually know about what is best for them?

I had a student give me "feedback" in a really patronising way - the charmer said to me: "I need to talk to you about your teaching style. It's not inclusive." This 2nd year undergrad then went on to explain to me that "There are different learning styles you know." Oh no, I did not know that in all my 30 years of teaching in three different countries. This is a student who announced before making a definitive comment in a class discussion, that they hadn't actually read the required reading, but that they thought X nevertheless.

We can choose how we get feedback on our modules - we can use an anonymous survey but we don't have to. If I'm teaching an optional module with only 20-25 students, I set up a discussion in the last class of each module, and I ask them specifically about what worked for them in the module, and any suggestions for tweaks which might be helpful for the next year's cohort.

This is usually a really useful discussion - it's about organisation & content, not about me. And interestingly, several students disagreed with the the charming student who deigned to teach me about teaching, and said that things that student had objected to, were actually quite useful for them. I did comment at that point that in my experience, a class of 25 students will contain a variety of learning styles, and I offer a variety of activities & assessments.

As you can see from my tone, I am impotently furious about this patronising student, and obsess about this one student, whereas at least another dozen students specifically thanked me for the module.

Argh! why ???? I wish I could bulletproof myself against such thoughtless & ignorant undergrads.

I had a student who asked for a chat and fed back to me that they felt really uncomfortable with my points about recognising and reflecting on white privilege in some teaching this week

The reason? Because they were white and didn't feel privileged - so why should they be made to feel bad? I really didn't know how to respond. I got lots of other great feedback after the session but I'm obsessively ruminating on this one - even though it's such a daft response

I never draw attention to the feedback forms in my classes, though the uni asks us to make announcements and what-not. As a result - or just because of feedback apathy - uptake is quite low, usually around 10-15% maximum. This can be a risky strategy, as generally only the very happy and very disgruntled are motivated to fill in the form. It also means I can usually identify the students who give feedback, not with complete certainty obviously, but I have a good sense of it. I got the results link last night for a module that I didn't feel went particularly well, mostly because they simply would not read or watch anything in preparation for class or assessment, though the classes themselves were mostly fine on a coffee-shop-chat level. The final project is a creative-type one that they usually enjoy immensely, and I have a (male) colleague who is also a practitioner come into them to give a workshop on this project towards the end of the semester. One student's evaluations give lower than average scores across all the usual categories, and on the open-ended comments section, waxes lyrical about how amazing my colleague is, and the module should be entirely redesigned along his line of expertise, and basically should become a completely practice-based module taught by people who 'actually know what they are talking about' (direct quote).

Now, it is a fun workshop to be fair, and this guy is very engaging and 'down with the kids'. And male, of course. But this isn't an industry-training course. It's a normal humanities course that we've tried to incorporate some practice-based work into. And of course, I know exactly who the student is, since I've overheard him many times venting about all the boring classes he has to take that are all about 'reading too much into things' (again, direct quote). He did none of the continuous assessment work throughout the term, and I contacted him lots and extended deadlines for him, and offered to accept work after term ended so that he could scrape through with the most marks possible. Of course, none of that appears in the assessment form in anyway (not even in 'the teaching staff were helpful and approachable' question, where he ticked 'somewhat').

As much as I am loathe to dignify the whole concept of student evaluation by acknowledging it to students, but I'm wondering if it would be better to discuss it in the final classes. Not even about the known flaws, but just how it works - like, I wonder if they are aware that I actually read them myself? It feels like they are addressing them to my 'boss', whoever they perceive that to be.

I never draw attention to the feedback forms in my classes, though the uni asks us to make announcements and what-not. As a result - or just because of feedback apathy - uptake is quite low, usually around 10-15% maximum.

I tend to do the same, and wondering how long until I get found out... 😝

I find dealing with student feedback easier than I did when I first arrived at my current department. At that point, we had a staff meeting at the end of each academic year where all feedback for all courses was printed out and distributed to all members of staff, and we were to give an oral response to feedback in front of all of our colleagues. I didn't find it easy at all as a young, female lecturer, with a foreign accent and without the kind of "charismatic" personality that earned praise to many of my male colleagues.

I found the discussion above quite interesting regarding why we find criticism from students more difficult than criticism about our research. To me one of the reasons is that students seem to have a lower degree of maturity about the whole process. Like most academics, I have had very unfair peer-reviewers, who made comments along the lines of "the author hasn't engaged with XYZ" when in fact I clearly have and this can be demonstrated without a doubt. However, this is something that I have only encountered a handful of times in my career, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. With student evaluations, it is every year that I get at least one comment that is demonstrably false. "No help provided with assignments"... this despite classes dedicated entirely to assignment help, references to the assignment questions (and how the various topics relate to them) in practically every lecture, extensive help sections in my Moodle pages, etc. I still find it enormously disconcerting that someone can confidently write something that amounts to pretty serious criticism and that can be disproven in thirty seconds. Either they are knowingly lying (which I think is not the norm) or they cannot be bothered to engage with the process (more common I think).

I would think not drawing attention is a risky strategy. I signpost in the final lecture to catch the majority who are happy if not over the moon. I also explicitly tell them that anything less than X is viewed as negative feedback (as our university has a delightful scoring system that basically insists everyone must be better than average).

Evaluations are less important here, as they aren't - currently - used for promotion purposes or performance reviews and thus don't have any real consequences, so the risk is really only to my own wellbeing. There is a new pilot system starting next year which is supposedly designed to address biases, and I suspect things may change then. If that happens, I'll probably change my strategy. If I'm still here.

For now, I need to learn to allow undergraduate blowhards to upset or enrage me. Every year, I say I won't take these comments to heart, and every year I do.

@medb22 As a student I always assumed the feedback forms were either read by admin staff or not read at all. Considering how we're all pestered all the time by companies, service providers, and so on to 'rate their service', I think it is important to spell out to students why I want their feedback and how I use it.

I also usually tell my students to think about what kind of feedback (e.g. on their essay) they find helpful, and to try and give that kind of feedback in their evaluation: it's fine to point out flaws or limitations, but no personal attacks, and if you identify something that didn't work well, then it would be even more helpful if you could include suggestions for improvement. Their practical suggestions are not always helpful, but at least it usually gives me insight into how serious to take their complaint (no, I will not remove two-thirds of the readings, but yes, I can look into replacing some articles with textbook chapters that provide an easier introduction to the topic).

Thanks to everyone for replying. I have read all of them. Been feeling too low to post tbh.

I just about got perspective on the student shitty comments when some of my so called team have been playing games and undermining me behind my back. Really nice when I've just got back from compassionate leave.

I think you get to a certain age in this job and suddenly you start being patronised and disrespected..it's like someone flipped a switch.. unbelievable.

I think bereavement knocks one's confidence as well as menopause. I've got both going on and no support from anywhere.

I wish I could walk.

So sorry @Mumteedum That’s awful about your colleagues playing games. Really undermining. Is it possible to call them out?

Thanks @EveryWitchWaybutLoose . I have dealt with most nonsense in my usual no nonsense way but I just feel ground down today. Not on my A Game. Had a meeting with a younger male lecturer who felt completely confident in telling me that students' written work was not up to scratch and at GCSE level and we should be doing xyz and that the criteria are crap (I wrote them and he knows it) and he thinks the class that several other (female) staff have had issues with is a ' great bunch' but they said he was ' really cool. ' He has approximately 40 hours teaching experience so far and is on a casual contract, hourly paid. I have no rapport with him at all. I was curt in an email (when he was being obnoxious) so I was attempting to be friendly but professional today just to get through some matters, and now I hate myself for not being able to robustly stand up for myself like I normally would. It was awful. There's nothing worse than dealing with staff who play popularity contests with the students and undermine you.

I mean it's all laughable really but staffing is so dire, I might be stuck with him next year. He's not the only one in my so called team, either, like this. Horrible culture of everyone out for themselves which seems to involve trying to drag me down.

I think you could dig out loads of research which suggests that students pretty much ALWAYS rate male lecturers more highly than women, no matter how raw and inexperienced the male lecturer is.

It might make you feel better and you could wave it in the face of anyone who questions your survey results? Possibly including your male colleague - who is treading on thin ice on a casual contract!

Funny you should say that....https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/10/31/ratings-and-bias-against-women-over-time

Thanks for the support and solidarity with everyone who has had similar.

I pay no attention any more to these after one year, I had an especially difficult student who trashed the module because ...

As part of their assessment, they have to go to a particular kind of business and do what they've been training to do in that business. They are meant to find this business themselves. This student made no effort to find somewhere. So I offered him the chance to do it in a friend's business. It is a 20 minute train ride from campus, but I met him there, made the introductions and left them to it.

My friend gave up 3 hours of her time to accommodate this student.

He wrote his assesment and passed. All good.

In the meq form open area he wrote that the module was terrible because he'd had to travel to X place.

On the what could be improved section he said: no travel to X.

He went on and on about it.

And then I have to explain to external examiner's, my curriculum lead and head of school why he was unhappy. Er, because I found him a business but it was a train ride away? Next time, I won't help, and they can fail their assessment because they'll have nothing to write about it.

I mean, I can laugh about it now and wish I'd have said something like, I think he meant thank you for the opportunity but he typed the wrong words.