Meeting 4: "Evaluating Your Own Teaching", by L.Dee Fink

Our next reading was "Evaluating Your Own Teaching", by L. Dee Fink, which can be found at
http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/evaluate.htm

What follows is a brief review of our discussion. We started by talking about the mid-semester reflections, and whether or not they should be done anonymously. Some of us found that in answer to what were the preferred classroom activities, many students said they liked discussion and an indication of pertinent quotations the best. We wondered whether, and to what extent, this was because students like to be told what to think.

We then moved to the subject of teachers being filmed. Some of us had been in different institutions where we were filmed whilst teaching, and had mostly negative comments about how we came across, such as not liking the sound of our voice, or not sufficiently moving around but being rooted to one spot, or of resolutely staying behind the desk. This brought us on to the important topic of increased self awareness, such as realizing the need to move around more, or come in front of the desk to be more part of the group, or to vary one’s tone of voice, or to not speak so fast. We even mentioned one example of a teacher who had been recorded for an hour’s presentation, and when the “you knows” were edited out of it, the actual content of the talk lasted only 25 minutes instead! We questioned, though, whether the presence of the camera might change the dynamics of the class, and whether even peer observation might also change this dynamic.

We asked the interesting question as to whether teaching is performance. Jane Gallop had written a controversial piece about how actors could substitute for teachers, but we agreed that even though this may be true for a lecture, it would not hold for a smaller interactive class, such as we teach here. It was suggested, though, that students look for performance, and one of the participants even remarked on how he juggles three balls in the air when he wants to get across the concept (and maybe the difficulty) of connecting three textual readings.

Linked to teaching as performance is the question of the use of humour, and it was agreed that students often like you if you are funny, and also it relaxes the atmosphere. But, it was remarked that humour can backfire, as it can imply great relaxation, and then when the teacher shows rigour in grading, that this can come as a shock. It was suggested that what potentially works well is to have variety in our classes, not only in blending humour with seriousness, but also in varying classroom activities.

We also talked about nervousness in teaching, and how this can come about if not well prepared. But it was suggested that nervousness can be positive, as it can mean that the teacher has a lot of energy and can be dynamic, rather than trying to suppress and deflate the energy. Some mention was made of music students who had frightening auditions under stressful circumstances such as dropping books, coughing, rustling papers and moving around, and those students who did not suppress their nerves, but continued to play their instruments energetically and with devotion, were the ones who did best. It was likewise suggested that often the teacher who does best does not over-prepare, but is ready to best accommodate any unexpected events or changes in direction.

From here we moved to the topic of student presentations, especially in the research writing classes, and one teacher remarked how students tend to privilege performance over content, as he gave the example of how one student gave a slick performance of little content, and another had much more substance but little of performance merit, and the students preferred the presentation of the first student. But in terms of whether students are nervous about presenting, it was thought that the best thing to tell them would be that they are now experts on a research topic that they have been working on exclusively.

Returning to the question of evaluating our teaching, as opposed to student presentations, we discussed the possibilities of gaining feedback from our students. We decided that the best way to request feedback would be to put it in a positive framework, asking open-ended questions such as “How effective was…?”, or asking for suggestions for change. This would hopefully lead to constructive comments, which could provide useful insight, and even give grounds for changing certain learning activities or emphasizing others, based on the needs and dynamic of the student group.