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November 27, 2005
An Intriguing Attitude about Student Evaluations
John Lundin at San Jose State stated an unusual and intriguing attitude toward his evaluations. "As long as I have a high standard deviation, I'm happy." The more I think about that posture, the wiser it seems. John wants to teach the class so that some of the students think he's the greatest thing since sliced bread while allowing himself the freedom for other students to think he's a disaster.
If I admit the truth, there are times when I find myself pandering to the students. I don't allow myself the freedom for a student to believe I'm disaster personified. I wonder if my class would be better if I did? I suspect it might.
John returned to academia after a successful IT career in industry. He's able to take more risk because he knows he can go back to that career, near where he lives in San Jose, without problem. Maybe we can gain from his situation at a distance ... perhaps he's pointing us to greater ultimate freedom and better classes???
By the way, John suggests to his administration that it is invalid to compare his evaluations to his colleagues'. Because his standard deviation is different than theirs, the t-test for difference in means is invalid. That test requires the two means to arise from distributions with the same standard deviation. If I remember my statistics, he's right. I wouldn't bet that it would mean much at UW, however ...
John starts his class with the following requirements:
- Be courteous
- Be prompt
- Be professional
- No excuses
Posted by DavidK at November 27, 2005 10:24 AM | Permalink