segues from the excellent to the disturbing

[lunabee34]

1. Please join us at journalsandplanners for talk about . . . journals and planners. LOL And all things stationery related. I just made a post to kick off activity, but feel free to make your own top-level posts. I'd love to see that comm get active again.

2. I got elected chair of Faculty Senate for next academic year. My plans for world domination continue apace.

3. I am clearly an outlier, but I really enjoy doing annual evaluations. I get to the end of mine, and I'm all, "I'm awesome. Look at all this amazing shit I did this year and recognize!" I have never had a problem tooting my own horn (which is perhaps its own kind of problem LOL).

4. Sammy wants to get in the fireplace, so that's A Project for today.

5. I put on my big girl panties and bought my plane ticket for SWPACA, a regional academic conference held in Albuquerque at the end of this month. I am crossing my fingers that I can get most of that + the conference registration reimbursed by my institution.

6. When Josh was at the grocery store yesterday, an employee suddenly started screaming and trying to cut himself with a box cutter in the middle of produce. It was very upsetting. I'm glad everyone in the store ended up okay, including the employee (or least not shot by police or a "good guy" with a gun), but Josh was really shaken up.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

So awful about the employee with the breakdown. Hope they got some help!!!!

I wouldn't mind employee evaluations if they were taken seriously and not just a formality, and/or if they were done in a meaningful way. In all my years of teaching I have never had a "real" one.

Example: at my other school I once got one where all they had to say was to try to take fewer sick days.

???

At least at that school my boss actually came and observed me teaching once.

At my current school my last dean was a guy whose goal in life was to sit with his feet up on his desk and talk about sports all day, every day. His evaluation process for us was a joke. I have a new dean now who seems like a pretty good person who actually wants to do his job, but the evaluation instrument they are using is terrible. I hope he can replace it. Example: It asks me to document evidence of my ethical standards. Um. How exactly does one do that? To fill this one out you basically have to spin a ton of bullshit. Which I do. Unfortunately I am very good at bullshitting.

But I am happy for YOU! And if you ruled the world that would not be such a bad thing.

ALso, have fun in NM!!! Wheeee.

[lunabee34]

I hope so, too. That's really scary. Josh said the paramedics came; he didn't see the police, so hopefully the guy did get some actual help and just not thrown into jail.

I like our current evaluation; it's clearly written and easy to document (no ethics category which is indeed WTF). We have 3 categories: teaching, scholarship, and service. We are in the process of making some system-wide changes to evaluations and the promotion and tenure process, so IDK how it will all shake out eventually, but right now, I like it.

[princessofgeeks]

Sounds like your evaluation instrument actually asks you to quantify things that are, you know, quantifiable!

In my last sit-down with the new dean I asked him to please change the instrument they are using and also to start observing us teach. I have no idea how they can evaluate my teaching if they don't observe me.

[lunabee34]

We also don't get a lot of formal evaluation of our teaching and here are some of the ways we measure the effectiveness of our teaching:

1. We can ask peers to evaluate our teaching.

2. We can participate in pedagogy groups at the institution/system/region level. I participate in two groups, and we meet monthly to read the same pedagogy books and articles, discuss, talk about our teaching, implement the things we've learned, and even present/submit articles based on our experiences.

3. Redesign courses to use or continue to use pedagogical best practices in our classrooms and write about them and their effectiveness in our classrooms. So, for example, I've been redesigning all my course assignments to be modeled on Transparency in Learning and Teaching Principles; so my evals have included narratives about doing so and about how much more effective my teaching has become.

4. Redesign courses to use or continue to use progression and retention techniques like weekly announcements in online courses or reaching out to students who miss assignments or low cost no-cost textbooks, etc.

5. Scholarship of teaching and learning: conference presentations, professional development presentations, and publications about pedagogy also count as evidence of effective teaching since these are all about trying something in the classroom.

6. Judicious selection of student evaluation comments and emails.

Maybe some of these could be helpful?

[princessofgeeks]

Yes, all these are great ideas and we have never formally implemented any of them on my campus. We have a lot to learn for sure.

[lunabee34]

That's a shame.

At least you will be shed of it soon. Not your circus; not your monkeys. :)