Some Reasons Not to Read Student Evaluations

For those of you who teach, how would you rate yourself in the classroom? Effective, communicative, witty, clever, knowledgeable... innovative? How would your students rate you, however? And just how reliable are their evaluations?

In "Hemlock Available in the Faculty Lounge, " (March 16, 2007, Chronicle of Higher Education), Thomas Cushman, in self-defense, shows how Socrates would rate as a teacher if he were evaluated by some of today's college students.

"Teaching evaluations have become a permanent fixture in the academic environment. These instruments, through which students express their true feelings about classes and profes-sors, can make or break an instructor. What would students say if they had Socrates as a professor?"

It's really quite funny. See the entire editorial below.

Link: Student Evaluations