It's getting close to the end of term and there's a lot of evaluating going on. Term papers are being handed in, presentations are in full swing and, if you're a MacEwan student, harassing emails reminding you to fill out your professor evaluations are clogging your inbox.
Unlike during my time at the UofA, MacEwan conducts their instructor evaluations online via their student portal. Oh the modern technology! I actually miss the scantron bubble paper and nervousness that came with slamming your jerk prof while he watched you do it. While the method has changed, my attitude toward instructor evaluations have not.
I know that my opinion as a student means nothing to administrators. I know that my evaluation will have zero merit when it comes to a contract renewal. If it did, I wouldn't hear nearly as many horror stories about some of the psycotic ego-maniacs who continue to have teaching jobs. But I do know that the profs read them, and I'd like to believe that there are some who actually care about being a good teacher. In my experience, giving a shit as a teacher is inversely proportional to having a Phd, which seems to be an increasingly important qualification at a new university like MacEwan.
So I will do my professor evaluations. Not because they have any weight with the university, but because they should have weight with the professors. I will let some of my instructors know that they have made a powerful impact on my abilities as a writer. I will let some of my instructors know that they did a great job teaching a poorly designed course. And I will let some of my professors know that they probably shouldn't be teaching. Or be allowed around young people. At all.
On the flip side, I'd love it if my instructors could give me an evaluation. Yes, they mark my assignments and provide some degree of feedback but a mark only evaluates how well you jumped through the hoops, not how well you learned. I would love to hear what they actually think of my cranky mature student ways. If you were a disengaged corpse of a student, don't you think it would be helpful to know?
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