At Grinnell, students and professors are held to high standards. But only students are held accountable.
Our grades are our professors’ evaluation of how much effort we input to readings, labs, papers, projects or exams. A demonstrated effort typically results in a high grade. But the same is not true for professors. Regardless of the amount of time and effort they put into preparing for class lectures or discussion, selecting relevant readings, designing challenging assignments and building a thorough syllabus, there is no commensurate rating awaiting them.
The lack of accountability and communication between students and professors concerning the actual class environment has negative effects on both parties. Students can become laggard because they feel uninspired; discussions suffer from poor preparation and low interest, and assignments become chores instead of challenges.
Likewise, professors are stuck with a group of perennial insomniacs who sleepwalk through class, either nodding disinterestedly or nodding off during lectures. No presenter wants an audience who is already bored, nor does any audience want a lecture from someone who does not engage them. But students still have an incentive to pay attention, lest their GPAs suffer for their sleepiness.
Grinnell’s only method of gathering student feedback on professors is through the course evaluations given at semester’s end, though this is an inadequate indicator of a professor’s performance. Sometimes, professors give only five or 10 minutes for students to complete the evaluations at the end of a regular class. More often, if students are given adequate time, they have no incentive to compose a detailed response because the evaluations come too late in the semester to benefit students currently in the course.
At best, evaluations are submitted for posterity, but even then they are a weak tool for students to express (dis)satisfaction with a course or professor and for professors to survey student’s ideas because short, written responses prohibit a dialogue between parties which would create better understanding.
The solution to the problem of accountability and communication is not to criticize professors or students for poor performance. It is, I think in part, to change the way Grinnell College evaluates professors and classes by establishing mid-semester reviews conducted by disinterested third parties in addition to written end-of-semester reviews.
Reviewing in the middle of the course means positive changes can be made which directly benefit the students, who in turn have an incentive to return constructive evaluations because they have a personal interest at stake. Professors can better adapt the course to each class’s unique desires, and in doing so stimulate more participation and provide a better education, which is the ultimate goal for both teacher and student.
Having a third party such as a college administrator conduct the evaluations in a group setting allows the facilitator to ask more probing questions than the current evaluations do and encourages students to feed off of one another’s ideas. Some of the best discussions I’ve had with my classmates have been about the course and our professor, not the readings.
Most importantly, the presence of a facilitator demonstrates to students that someone is actually listening to their concerns, which is miles beyond the current procedure that leaves students wondering what effect their contributions have made, if any.
With an institutionalized commitment to communication between students and professors, both become more accountable to each other. Students become more accountable for their participation because professors now have specific suggestions for increasing student engagement. Professors become accountable to students through the end-of-semester evaluations, which can establish whether student input was used or ignored. Ultimately, everyone wins. Isn’t it time that we graded them?
