The article 'Making Meaning from Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs)–Seeing beyond our own horizons' by Carina Jia Yan Zhu, Diana White, Janet Rankin and Christina Jean Davison, recently published in Teaching & Learning Inquiry
explores the question of how educators make meaning from their student evaluation of teaching.
Instructed interviews that focus on the teacher’s experience of receiving the results of student evaluations were made with educators working at a Middle East Campus of a Canadian university. The research indicates that in general, educators welcome feedback from students and view them as having the capability to provide an accurate assessment of teaching. However, the teachers take students’ evaluations rather emotionally. Many teachers focus too much on negative evaluations. When facing negative feedback, the teachers tend to target the students as the problem, instead of considering their feedback as an indication of something going wrong within the teaching – learning environment. The teachers see their students as partners in the shared experience of teaching and learning. Thus, unexpectedly negative feedback may evoke a strong response. Many interviews were fraught with very personal feelings of being hurt, angry, disappointed and ashamed. Critical feedback trigged deep feelings of being rejected: “Teachers never want negative evaluations. We do our best just as you do your best”. Teachers experienced personal vulnerability in the face of the student evaluations and were embarrassed at the thought of sharing it with colleagues.
The authors suggest that the teachers should consciously acknowledge the feeling of disappointment and shame, which is an important step towards listening deeply to a truth that may lie beyond what is safe and familiar. They believe that deep listening is the attitude to defensiveness. It can mitigate some of the tensions and discomfort that student evaluations generate for the teachers. When we truly listen to our students, we are not listening for affirmation or rejection of ourselves.
However, to be a deep listener to student feedback, teachers need support at the individual and community level. At the individual level, we need to develop an understanding of our teaching that cannot come solely from the student evaluations. Inviting fellow peers to observe and evaluate one’s teaching can offer valuable insights. Communally, teachers have to seek out peers who are also committed to listening deeply to the expression of the students’ experiences. Supportive environment of two or three colleagues with whom they have sincere conversations about their teaching, where they can express ideas different from what they would say in a broader social context is extremely important. The authors suggest to engage with these networks before reading the feedback. Review practice with peers who are committed to listening deeply to student feedback and with whom the teacher feels safe to share feedback from the student evaluations should become ritualistic and full of meaning for the teachers. It is also important to fuse the students’ experiences and feedback with the teachers’ own truth to arrive to expanded understanding of the feedback and work to respond to this feedback.
Comment: Teachers are encouraged to reflect upon their accomplishment in teaching for promotion/merit/tenure. Thus, inviting fellow peers to observe one’s teaching should become a common practice that can offer valuable insights. Listening deeply to students’ evaluations with some fellow peers we trust may help identify areas for growth. Deep listening allows us also to hear key message embedded within the students’ evaluations and implores us to trust that each student knows something about how they have experienced learning. Only from this place, we become open to growth and change.
Text: Natalia Ringblom, Institutionen för slaviska och baltiska språk finska nederländska och tyska
