Second Tips for Teachers Meeting, Fall 08

In our second Tips for Teachers of the semester, we read and discussed any and all articles in the 
September 21st, 2008 Sunday New York Times Magazine: The College Issue, which can be found
 online at http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/

We started our discussion by talking about the article on student evaluations, and commented on how Rutgers has well rounded questions, and how the Writing Program has specifically adapted questions to make them relevant to our pedagogy. In addition, we thought that we were different from the college mentioned in the article, in which there was a criterion to let a teacher go if he or she had less than a certain level of statistical support, because in addition to our evaluations, we also have folder review and mentoring, so we get to know the WP teachers from other angles. One person mentioned that she appreciates evaluations, as she has learned things about her teaching that she did not know before, such as that students see her as enthusiastic.

We talked about how midterm evaluations might also be useful to do, so that a teacher can get a sense of what works well and what changes to make with that particular group of students, and many of us indeed already perform a midterm reflections exercise with our students for this reason.

We also mentioned how the grades that students receive might influence how they evaluate us. And we said how students in a higher level class might write more expressive comments than a student in a more remedial course, since they might have not only different levels of capability but also a higher morale.

It was asked whether race or gender would affect how a teacher is evaluated. One member present spoke of an article he had read in which dress and social standards of beauty were looked at to see if they affect the evaluations a student might give, and it was found that there was a definite correlation between these factors, with an even bigger impact for women than for men. It was speculated that in the Rutgers Writing Program, however, race and gender would not be significant factors, since the university is so cosmopolitan, but it was thought that accent might make a difference, not because of bias but purely because it might make a teacher harder to comprehend. However, one male teacher present spoke of his experience teaching a course on feminism at a different university, and said how the students expected him to either be a woman or a gay man.

In addition to the diverse nature of the student population at Rutgers, we also spoke about how some students might be the first generation in their family to go to college, thus meaning that many of the topical and controversial issues we confront in our writing classes are directly relevant to them, and not just an ivory tower exercise.

Another member present said that despite some possible inherent problems with evaluation, there are generally no evaluations in high school, so once they get to college, students appreciate having a voice. We did talk, however, of how some schools and colleges have peer observations while a class is in session, though many of us agreed that the class dynamic might be altered by the presence of the observer.

We also talked about how students are different depending not only on the campus location, but also their major, since some science majors might not like taking a writing course.

Another point mentioned was that in the Writing Program we try to dispel any notion a student might have of being a “consumer” as, through collaboration, discussion and small group work as opposed to lecturing, we teach them about individual responsibility. We also teach them that a philosophy of maximum returns for minimum effort is not true in the Writing Program. Students learn the skill of writing, which can be applied to every walk of life.

Our attention turned to the article about the writer who became a teacher, and how he was concerned that since he spent so much time reading mundane student papers rather than literary works, he worried that his own writing might be negatively affected. But we said we did not think this was applicable to the WP here at Rutgers, since the readings deal with issues of relevance and complexity, and many of us teaching a 201 research writing course, said we felt so inspired by the research methodology that it made us want to do our own research.

And we all agreed that one of the beauties of teaching is seeing students getting inspired. This led us to look at the careful placement carried out in the Writing Program, so that hopefully students are not in over their heads, and we mentioned how hard it can be to teach students of different capabilities, as the fundamental question then becomes one of who do we aim for in our teaching – the bright and therefore risk losing some of the students, or the ones who need more help and therefore risk boring the bright ones.

We moved from here to a discussion of whether taking AP exams is a good idea for high school students, or whether they would be better off taking the class with an expert and their peers in college. Many of us thought that students taking a 201 writing class have benefited from having taken 101. Some also suggested that the brightest students might benefit from taking the class in college as opposed to as an AP exam, so that they can become leaders in their college class, and help their peers. And we reminded ourselves that even the best writers need editors.