Professors’ Perspective: Student Evaluations

Students get a chance to voice their opinions about their professors by evaluating them in class. For new professors, this can make the difference between continuing with their career, or their career cut short.

It is only fair that students have an opportunity to evaluate the performance of their professors, considering that for the whole semester, the professor has been evaluating them. Some of the things professors are evaluated on include:

· Did the professor start and end the class on time?
· Did the professor return assignments in a reasonable length of time?
· Did the professor seem knowledgeable about their subject matter?
· Was the classroom environment suitable for the needs of the course? (This is more an evaluation of the school’s resources than the professor, however sometimes the professor influence the decision of the classroom the course is held in)
· Did the professor provide enough information about assignments required for the class?
· Did the professor make himself or herself available for consultation outside of classroom hours?
· Did the professor encourage classroom discussion?
· Does the professor answer questions in a timely and knowledgeable way?

These are just a few of the questions that are asked of students in order to evaluate their professor or instructor. Some professors do not take the student evaluations seriously, however many professors use these evaluations to improve their teaching skills.

Other ways a professor can improve their teaching skills is to videotape their presence in front of the class. This may help them to hone in on some of their strengths and weaknesses while they are facilitating the classroom environment.

There are many ways to improve one’s teaching methods that are even available online. A site such as www.developfaculty.com has a “Tip of the Week” section for professors that will help them to get the best student evaluations they can. As well, there are many books associated with that site that can help new professors strengthen their skills, as well as old professors learn some new tricks.

Private Versus Public Education

In many countries, the public education system can seem so under-funded that when it comes to primary and secondary schooling – there seems to be no other choice but to put your child through private school. Here are some things to consider about a public school you may want to put your child into.

If the school you are looking at does not have these things, you may want to consider sending your child to private school:

· Does the school have a strong second language-learning program, such as French that is highly regarded in Canada, or Spanish that is highly regarded in the United States?
· What are the test scores coming from the current students of the school?
· What is the physical education system like at the school?
· Does the school offer a travel club so your child may experience educational and supervised trips at a reduced cost?
· What is the quality of the reading materials at the school?
· What tend to be the percentage of students from the school that go onto post-secondary education?
· Does the school have a fine arts and music program?

There may be a number of other things that you would want from your school and make sure you have it. If not, perhaps private school may be the best thing for you.

Managing a Classroom

It is sometimes rare to get a classroom that behaves perfectly. There are always those few students that are having side conversations while the professor is speaking. These are some of the things you can do to make sure you are managing your classroom well.

Sometimes the hard line approach actually can work. By letting students know you will not put up with their disruptive behaviour, this makes the classroom a better learning environment for all students.

Some ways of dealing with the noise levels are the stop speaking until the room has quieted down. This tends to be an effective method that works, without the professor needing to shout.

Another method that tends to work is let the students know that if they are going to make noise in the class...you would prefer they do not show up. If they are going to be disruptive, perhaps they should not show up to class at all if they would rather chat about such things as Facebook.

Another method to ensure that your classroom is orderly is to make sure that you have a participation or a professional conduct mark as part of your class. Make sure to keep track of those students who seem to constantly be the noise makers and make sure you penalize them at the end of the class for being so disruptive. Make sure at the same time that reward those students to actually come to class to learn.

Corporate Education

More and more professors and teachers are asked to do training sessions in the corporate world.

Corporate education has been going on for a long time. There is always a need to upgrade staff on skills such as computers, administration policies, creativity and all kinds of workplace functions. There are even professors that exclusively teach in the corporate world.

Another way of accessing the corporate education market in a place like Canada is through schools that are privately owned. This kind of education is seen as a more corporate way of teaching, compared to working for schools that are partially, if not completely government funded.

Professors make good money at these schools. Two of them that come to mind are Herzing College and Everest College, located in Toronto. There are many of them throughout Canada and the United States. A professor working at a private college can make about $40/hr. for a 40 hour work week.

When a professor goes into a workplace to train professionals on how to do their job better this also sets the stage for the potential for in-house employment on this level too. Sometimes a trainer may be brought in to do diversity workshops as one example. This diversity trainer may be kept on in-house for a length of time to ensure that the objectives of the training have been met.