A new system for evaluating classes is being introduced in time for the end of this fall semester.
The new evaluation form will be standardized for all courses at Temple.
The goal of the new program is to better listen to student responses and to increase the quality of teachers.
“The quality of student life is very important so under this new arrangement, the students will have a voice,” said vice provost for undergraduate studies Stephen Zelnick.
“Of course the quality of teachers is always uneven. So, with the new evaluation system teachers can register their assessment and be able to change what’s going wrong.”
Under this new system, the actual format of the evaluation is the same, but the forms will now be sent to a processing company, which will statistically analyze the data and reduce each teacher to a composite score.
President Adamany had asked the faculty senate and requested that the University switch to a uniform evaluation across the board, according to Zelnick.
Adamany had successfully implemented this program at other universities such as Wayne State and the University of Colorado.
The program was piloted at Temple’s Beasley School of Law, Fox School of Business and Management, College of Education and the Intellectual Heritage department.
70,000 forms were administered and over 70 percent were returned.
Over the next three years a Teaching Evaluation Committee, consisting of students and faculty from Temple’s various colleges and campuses will hold forums and surveys to gauge the success of failures of the new system.
“This new system will not only be a way for Temple to make a university-wide comparison of teachers and courses,” said acting dean of the college of education Joseph Ducette, “but it also a way to maintain systematic track of teaching evaluations and progress.”
In the near future the university hopes to be able to make the composite scores of teachers available online to students and faculty.
Students will be able to gauge the success of specific teachers and then decide whether they would benefit from studying with specific professors.
Currently, the results from the upcoming evaluation will only be available online to teachers and department chairs, who will have access via a pin number.
“It’s too bad I’m leaving this year,” said senior Candace Henderson-Brooks, “I really could have benefited from being able to check out teacher’s progress online before signing up for the class. That definitely would have saved me a lot of time and headache.”
The new questions will deal with both the teacher and the class, so students will have information about the whole course, not just the instructor.
“Teaching has changed so much over the years,” said Zelnick, “I hope that with this new arrangement, we can change the culture of teaching evaluation, which will lead to discussion about what good teaching is. We need to begin to raise questions about what works for the students.”
Jennifer West can be reached at jwest002@temple.edu
Be the first to comment