Post #2961561

The problem I want to highlight is that one central reason student evals don’t work is that we don’t really have a clear, concrete, specific, universally applicable framework for identifying “quality instruction” in the k-12 or higher ed environments. I would argue that we not only can’t have one, we shouldn’t even want one and shouldn’t be trying to make one. When people teach, they teach like a person. Insofar as they are working with people and not widgets, that is to be desired. Students will eventually work for people they will have to deal with one way or another, whether as bosses or colleagues or co-volunteers or whatever it is. Different people are better and worse at different things, and have different ways of going about things — some ways are arguably better or worse, but teachers in classes are often trying to do different things from each other and different things from what the students have come to expect, whether from their parents or previous schooling or their peers or their own reflection. Those different things might have to do with aptitudes or inclinations, but also have to do with specific pedagogical choices. https://jeffreyfisher.substack.com/p/student-evaluations-dont-evaluate?r=2g7xpl