A SPECIAL INVESTIGATION INTO FAU’S SPOTS THE TEACHING EVALUATIONS STUDENTS TAKE AT THE END OF THE SEMESTER
JANUARY 16, 2018 UPRESSONLINE.COM
MEET DRONNADULA REDDY, AN 85-YEAROLD TENURED PROFESSOR WITH A SIX-FIGURE SALARY. THE UP ANALYZED THE TEACHING EVALUATIONS OF 6,500 CLASSES AND HE RANKED THE WORST LAST YEAR. BUT AFTER A SEMESTER-LONG INVESTIGATION, WE’RE SKEPTICAL OF THESE EVALUATIONS’ ACCURACY. PAGE 10
IS THIS FAU’S WORST PROFESSOR?
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SKEPTICAL FROM THE START
A
FTER SERVING as editor of the University Press in fall 2017, I wanted to answer one last question before I graduated — who are FAU’s best and worst undergraduate teachers? But it wasn’t as cut and dry as I hoped. I thought using those surveys students take at the end of every semester would have the answer. And they did, but I’m not sure if I can trust it. The Student Perception of Teaching course evaluation, or SPOTs for short, is a way for students to offer feedback on their teachers. That feedback is then made public online, which I used to write this issue. Starting in October, I collected over 6,500 course evaluations and finally determined who the best and worst undergraduate teachers are (see pages 10 and 13).
SENIOR WRITER
But here’s why I don’t trust what I found:
1. On average, only 58 percent of FAU’s 30,000 students complete these teacher evaluations. That means that almost half of the student body isn’t weighing in. 2. SPOTs have nine total questions: six ask students to agree or disagree with a statement, and then three consist of students’ written comments. But FAU doesn’t publish these online, meaning the public doesn’t have immediate access to what students are saying about their teachers. 3. Research suggests students let their personal biases influence their evaluation of their teachers.
I used to think SPOTs were an accurate tool used to judge teachers’ performance. Now I’m not so sure. Take this issue for what it is: a skeptical look at SPOTs’ validity and how I think they need to change in order to be effective. Distribution Manager Benjamin Paley contributed to the reporting of this issue.
FAU’s SPOT evaluations are available online, dating back as far as 2005. To see where we found the data used in this issue, go to https://www.fau.edu/spot/
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JOE PYE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
UP STAFF SPECIAL ISSUE EDITOR
JOE PYE
SPECIAL ISSUE DESIGNER
IVAN BENAVIDES
Summarizing SPOTs
Spotting The Problem
Is This FAU’s Worst Professor?
A rundown of SPOTs’ history at the university — from how they’re used to how they’ve changed.
College students judge professors on looks more than teaching. Read on to see what other flawed information finds its way into teaching evaluations.
Dronnadula Reddy is a tenured professor who earns over six figures annually and had the worst end-ofthe-semester course evaluations from summer 2016-17. But we’re not so sure they’re entirely accurate.
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PHOTO EDITOR Joshua Giron
FAU’s
BUSINESS MANAGER Ryan Lynch
Best Teachers
… Sort Of
Connecting The SPOTs
Find out who ranked as the best undergraduate teachers from summer 2016-17 according to SPOT evaluations.
What Special Issue Editor Joe Pye thinks FAU needs to do to get the most out of its teaching evaluation.
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EDITOR IN CHIEF Kerri Covington MANAGING EDITOR Katrina Scales CREATIVE DIRECTOR Celeste Andrews SENIOR DESIGNER Ivan Benavides WEB EDITOR Richard Finkel FEATURES EDITOR Hope Dean COPY EDITOR Asuka Takahashi
DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Benjamin Paley ADVISERS Neil Santaniello, Ilene Prusher, Michael Koretzky
COVER ILLUSTRATION BY Ivan Benavides
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WHAT IS A SPOT EVALUATION?
SUMMARIZING
SPOTs
AN FAQ OF WHAT THE END-OF-THESEMESTER TEACHING EVALUATIONS ARE AND WHY FAU WANTS YOU TO TAKE THEM. JOE PYE | SENIOR WRITER
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VERY SEMESTER you’re asked to fill out the Student
Perception of Teaching survey. Yet, you aren’t told how FAU uses them. From the evaluation’s history to why the university considers them important, we give a breakdown of everything SPOTs.
UNIVERSITY PRESS JAN.16.2018
Public universities have always needed insight into how university faculty members are performing in the classroom. Different schools have different names for these evaluations, but essentially all are surveys designed for students to give feedback on their teachers’ performance. While not mandatory, SPOTs are available to take online at the end of every semester. Teachers are encouraged by administration to have their students take the survey. SPOTs have nine total survey questions: six multiple choice and three short answer. Students respond to the first five by selecting: Completely Agree, Somewhat Agree, Somewhat Disagree, and Completely Disagree.
1. Did they cover what was was stated in the course objectives? 2. Did they communicate ideas effectively? 3. Did they give useful feedback on coursework? 4. Did they encourage students to think critically? 5. Did they show respect for students? 6. Rate your instructor’s overall teaching effectiveness in this course: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor. 7. What did you like most about this course? 8. How could this course be improved? 9. Additional comments and suggestions.
WHO CAN SEE THE RESULTS?
While students’ answers to the first six questions are available to the public online, their answers to the final three are withheld by the university. “Generally speaking, publishing student comments is not an accepted best practice for the evaluation of teaching,” said FAU assistant provost for Academic Operations and Planning James Capp. “First, it would be difficult to protect student privacy and anonymity, as identifiable information may be included in the comments. Also, FAU prefers to analyze student comments using standard qualitative methods.” Although, teachers can view the anonymous responses to all nine questions. Capp continued: “The institution shares comments with instructors and their supervisors to ensure that they can address unique concerns on a case-by-case basis.”
HOW MANY STUDENTS FILL OUT SPOT EVALUATIONS?
HOW DO SPOTS COMPARE TO RATEMYPROFESSORS?
Just 58 percent of FAU’s 30,000 student population complete the survey on average, according to Capp.
Richard Freishtat, teaching evaluations researcher and director of the University of California Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning, said that if SPOT evaluations allowed students to view each others’ comments anonymously like review site RateMyProfessors, they’d be more likely to fill them out. FAU only publishes the numerical responses to SPOT evaluations online, not the short answer responses. Freishtat asked, “What incentive do students have to take the surveys, or read them if they can’t view what their colleagues are saying?”
HOW DOES FAU USE THE STUDENT SURVEY?
The sixth SPOT question, “Rate your instructor’s overall teaching effectiveness,” is used to help judge teachers’ job performance, according to the Promotion and Tenure Portfolio Guidelines for Tenure Track Faculty for 2017-18. This applies to job reviews carried out by the university’s Promotion and Tenure Committees. Possible promotions and tenure — a form of job security offering academic freedom and certain protections from being fired — are taken into consideration if a teacher consistently performs well and receives praise via SPOTs.
Richard Freishtat
Teaching evaluations researcher
WHAT DOES FAU THINK OF THE EVALUATIONS?
WHAT’S THE HISTORY BEHIND SPOTS?
FAU started SPOTs back in 2002. Online SPOT data is available as far back as 2005. But up until four years ago, the evaluations consisted of a longer print format handed out in class. FAU’s Faculty Senate voted in 2014 to move SPOTs online to cater to the increase in online and blended courses. “The conversation regarding online SPOTs revolved around accessibility,” Capp said. ”The move was due to the increased number of fully online and hybrid courses at FAU. The online SPOT could meet the needs of any course regardless of delivery mode.” After hearing from an assessment committee, the Senate voted in 2015 to shorten the number of survey questions from 21 to the six they felt were most important, according to exercise science professor and former Faculty Union President Robert Zoeller. The assessment committee decided to decrease the question number to increase the response rate. They felt that five were duplicate questions and that another 10 “didn’t offer additional information at the expense of greatly lengthening the evaluation and thus likely diminishing student response rate,” a letter from the committee states. However, when SPOTs were administered via paper, the response rate was 66 percent. Today, that number has dropped eight percent, according to Capp.
Emily Lawless
Student Body President
Student Body President Emily Lawless has mixed feelings regarding the online evaluations. “I do feel they are enough because if you wanted to condemn your professor you could and if you wanted to praise them, you could,” Lawless wrote in an email. “For the professors who are mediocre and I don’t really have an opinion about it becomes hard because I don’t really have anything to say, so the SPOTs is not effective to me.” She continued: “[Students won’t fill them out] unless they are receiving extra credit, or if they have feedback they want to provide.” Alternatively, assistant provost Capp said via email that SPOTs are an “extremely effective tool to evaluate the quality of instruction.” Zoeller questioned the validity of the shortened online version of SPOT evaluations and said they’re not an evaluation of teachers. “It’s called Student Perception of Teaching, it’s their perception,” Zoeller said. “My concern I raised when they shortened the form: ‘Are these valid questions?’ We have not subjected this survey to any kind of validation process. There are, for people who’ve designed surveys, validation processes.” He added: “If we’re going to do this, let’s make sure we have a valid document.”
Robert Zoeller
former Faculty Union President
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SPOTTING THE PROBLEM END-OF-THE-SEMESTER COURSE EVALUATIONS ARE SUPPOSED TO REFLECT A TEACHER’S ABILITIES, BUT OFTEN JUST REPORT STUDENTS’ PERSONAL BIASES. JOE PYE | SENIOR WRITER
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EACHING EVALUATIONS should give solid feedback from students to department heads on whether an instructor is worth continued employment — but that’s not always what happens. From low response rates to gender, ethnicity, and age biases, teaching evaluations, like FAU’s Student Perception of Teaching survey, have a long way to go until they’re a concrete measurement of a teacher’s abilities.
T
FLAWED FROM THE START
On average, just 58 percent of FAU’s 30,000 students take the Student Perception of Teaching evaluations, said James Capp, assistant provost for Academic Operations and Planning. This is down from the 66 percent response rate previously seen with the original paper format. (See page 5 for a brief history on SPOTs.) Researchers argue that any response rate under 66 percent is “utterly useless,” like Richard Freishtat, director of the University of California Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning. He added that any evaluation with a response rate under 100 percent should be interpreted with caution. Teaching evaluations researcher Philip B. Stark, a UC Berkeley statistics professor, agrees with Freishtat, saying the current response rate is an “imperfect census.” FAU even admits the SPOT survey has limitations, but still views it as a valuable tool. “Despite the limitations of the SPOT forms, the department acknowledges the validity of student input as one part of a holistic approach to the evaluation of teaching,” according to FAU’s annual evaluation criteria. Yet tenure and promotion committees at FAU consider the responses to SPOT’s sixth question: “Rate your instructor’s overall teaching effectiveness in this course” as part of a review of a faculty member. A SPOT evaluation is what is known as a Likert scale survey — where a student is asked to select how much they agree or disagree with a statement. Freishtat feels FAU, along with other universities, uses this system because it’s easy to administer. It’s a quick way to get a number to use as a mean score that promotion committees can then use to compare faculty members in the department. More often than not, he believes universities rely on these evaluations too much. And sometimes, they’re the only source that is taken into consideration at all when judging a teacher’s performance.
HOW MUCH OF FAU’S SPOTS WOULD TEACHING EVALUATION RESEARCHERS CALL USEFUL?
SPOTs’ current response rate, on average, is 58 percent. Teaching evaluations researcher Richard Freishtat said any response rate under 66 percent is “utterly useless.” For the following semesters, the bolded percentage is how many courses had over a 66 percent response rate. This means that Freishtat would consider the majority of 2016-17’s SPOT evaluations “useless.” The average of these four semesters is 25 percent. • Summer 2016 22 PERCENT • Fall 2016 27 PERCENT • Spring 2017 30 PERCENT • Summer 2017 21 PERCENT
ARE TEACHING EVALUATIONS BIASED?
Philip B. Stark
Teaching evaluations researcher
Research suggests yes. Both Freishtat and Stark agree that end-of-the-semester teaching evaluations don’t evaluate teaching at all. Instead, they measure gender, ethnic, and student satisfaction biases. Students often write in the comment sections about an instructor’s accent and ethnicity as reasons for their poor scores, according to the two researchers. Meanwhile, women are criticized over their looks and personalities, as well as their gender. A 2014 study published in the journal, “Innovative Higher Education,” showed that sexism is prevalent throughout teaching evaluations. The study involved an online class that was split into four
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groups, with a male and a female professor each teaching two groups. The professors then switched their online identities, with the male instructor assuming the identity of the female instructor and vice versa. The female professor, who was posing as a male teacher, received higher marks while the latter earned lower. Students also used stereotypical gendered terms to describe both professors in their comments. They referred to, who they thought, was the female professor as “motherly,” and the “male professor” as “brilliant” or “funny.” This sexism can carry over to SPOTs and ultimately affect the future of teachers at FAU. If female teachers are unfairly critiqued because of their gender, that could carry over to a department’s review committee on whether to promote them. On top of this, students’ responses often contradict each other: what one student perceives as a flaw in the instructor’s performance, another finds to be a strength rather than a weakness. And because these surveys are anonymous, students tend to lose any filter they’d have if their name was attached, sometimes leading to openly prejudiced comments.
The largest class to have a 100 percent response rate had only 29 students. The fall and spring semesters have courses with up to 568 students.
HOW RARE IS IT TO SEE A WHOLE CLASS RESPOND?
FACULTY ARE TORN ON HOW TO HANDLE THESE EVALUATIONS
UC Berkeley has been hesitant to make changes with its Student Evaluations of Teaching. Currently only half of the campus has switched to an online version, Freishtat says. When the school’s Faculty Senate voted on the change, many were doubtful. Whereas at FAU, the majority of the Faculty Senate was in favor of the change despite the low response rate, with only a select minority concerned, according to former Faculty Union President Robert Zoeller. The Senate meets to discuss general educational policy four times every semester. Zoeller said that he raised questions when the Senate voted to move SPOTs online in 2014. “I remember saying to the Senate, ‘Just cause it’s electronic, doesn’t make it better.’ Ya’ know, it’s sexier and fancier, but is it really better?” Zoeller asked. When they were administered on paper, SPOT evaluations had undergone a process called “validation.” This is where research is conducted to determine if a survey does what it says it does. But when the survey was shortened, altered, and moved online, it did not undergo this process. Zoeller again questioned the Senate in 2015 when it voted in favor of decreasing SPOTs’ number of questions from 21 to six. He feels that the survey is no longer a valid tool. “They seemed to be in a hurry by my impression,” Zoeller
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• Summer of 2016: 1.9 PERCENT undergraduate classes had a 100 percent student response rate. • Fall of 2016: 0.98 PERCENT undergraduate classes had a 100 percent student response rate. • Spring of 2017: 1.4 PERCENT undergraduate classes had a 100 percent student response rate. • Summer of 2017: 1.2 PERCENT undergraduate classes had a 100 percent student response rate.
said. “It’s kind of important, why are we not making sure that we don’t have a valid instrument? A number of people agreed, but when it came to the vote it went through overwhelmingly.” Freishtat has been studying student evaluations of teachers at UC Berkeley for five years now, and he said he doesn’t believe there’s a way to quantitatively measure whether an instructor is an effective teacher. The researcher said that students’ perceptions of teachers are just one piece of a small puzzle that would make up a sufficient tool to measure an instructor’s teaching effectiveness. “We have no single objective quantifiable measure to say, ‘This student learned this much, in this class, because of this teacher,’” he said. “That doesn’t exist, nor do I know that it can exist.”
Robert Zoeller
former Faculty Union President
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MEETINGS 2 PM / STUDENT UNION / ROOM 214
EVERY FRIDAY
A TENURED PROFE OVER SIX FIGURES ANN WORST END-OF-THE-SEM EVALUATIONS. BUT WE’R THEY’RE ENTIR
FAU’ PRO
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IS THIS E U’S WORST OFESSOR?
ESSOR EARNING NUALLY HAS THE MESTER COURSE RE NOT SO SURE RELY ACCURATE.
JOE PYE | SENIOR WRITER
ILLUSTRATION BY IVAN BENAVIDES
Dronnadula Reddy spent most of his career studying and teaching students about concrete, but the results of his Student Perception of Teaching evaluations are anything but that. In spring 2017, Reddy taught a course called Ocean Structures, which teaches students how to build oildrilling platforms and other structures offshore. All nine students in the class marked “poor” in response to SPOTs’ sixth question: “Rate your instructor’s overall teaching effectiveness in this course: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor.” This was the worst undergraduate end-of-thesemester evaluation from summer 2016 to summer 2017. Out of nearly 6,500 classes, Reddy’s was the only one to have every student select “poor” to that question. Yet, the university pays him $122,428 annually, according to state payroll/pension search website, Florida Has A Right To Know. His salary also increased from $109,696 over the past few years, according to the 2013-14 Faculty Senate salaries report. NGINEERING
PROFESSOR
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Reddy is a tenured professor, meaning he has certain protections from being fired, as well as increased freedom with how he teaches. On top of this, he was the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship in 2003. He also authored a book titled: “Essentials of Offshore Structures: Framed and Gravity Platforms.” How could a professor with this background have the worst SPOT evaluations over the course of a year? It may be because students don’t always judge professors on teaching in their course evaluations.
IS IT REALLY ABOUT HIS TEACHING?
It’s very possible that Reddy prefers teaching one class more than others, leading to the poor ratings. But it’s also possible there were alternative reasons behind the students’ decisions to give him low marks. They could have had a personal bias against him like his ethnicity and age — he’s an 85-year-old professor with a thick accent. These biases could have been more apparent in SPOTs’ three written student comments, but FAU doesn’t publish them. Instead, only the numerical responses to the first six questions are available online. (See page 4 for a complete list of SPOTs’ nine questions.) The University Press filed a public records request with FAU to view all of SPOTs’ student comments from summer 2016-17 on Dec. 22, 2017, but has yet to receive them as of publication time. And while these comments aren’t immediately available online, the teacher review site, RateMyProfessors, does publish students’ comments anonymously. Oddly enough, Reddy received high ratings — 4.3 out of 5 — on RMP. Alternatively, SPOTs’ best professor from the College of Engineering, Khaled Sobhan, received a score of 3 out of 5 on RMP. The UP analyzed Reddy’s teaching evaluations from summer 2016-17, but his RMP ratings are dated from 2008-11, with positive comments saying things like: “Not the best teacher, but I learned a lot and did very well in the class. He is hard to understand at times, but is kind of funny.” Meanwhile, Sobhan’s RMP comments are as recent as 2016 and 2017, but also have notes about his accent: “Terrible, extremely unorganized, all over the place, bad English, and somewhat funny.” The accents and sense of humor of both of these professors were taken into account when rating their teaching abilities, something Philip B. Stark, co-author of the study, “Evaluating Teaching Evaluations,” said is more common than actual evaluations of teaching abilities. “There’s a large literature out there on biases and a variety of sources on not only gender, but the physical attractiveness of the professor, whether the instructor speaks English or
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with an accent, the age of the instructor and other things,” the professor of statistics at the University of California Berkeley said. “The main signals doesn’t seem to be teaching effectiveness.”
TAKING A CLOSER LOOK AT THE NUMBERS
“BUT IT’S ALSO POSSIBLE THERE WERE ALTERNATIVE REASONS BEHIND THE STUDENTS’ DECISIONS TO GIVE HIM POOR MARKS. THEY COULD HAVE HAD A PERSONAL BIAS AGAINST HIM LIKE HIS ETHNICITY AND AGE - HE’S AN 85-YEAR-OLD PROFESSOR WITH A THICK ACCENT.” - Joe Pye
The results of Reddy’s spring 2017 Ocean Structures course evaluations aren’t flattering. Most students completely disagreed that he was able to communicate ideas effectively (88.9 percent), give useful feedback on coursework (77.8 percent), encourage students to think critically (66.7 percent), and show respect for students (55.6 percent), according to questions 2-5 from his SPOT evaluations. Alongside that spring 2017 course, Reddy taught another section of the class — where responses were better, but not by much. In summer 2016, he taught Foundation Engineering, a seniorlevel civil engineer course that teaches students how to build structures on land, which received higher responses. Over half of students (61.5 percent) marked “excellent” to SPOTs’ sixth question on teaching effectiveness and the rest (38.5 percent) marked “very good.” But only a little over half (56.5 percent) of the class took the survey.
CONTACTING REDDY PROVED MORE DIFFICULT THAN WE THOUGHT...
After speaking with Stark, the UP tried to meet with Reddy in person to find out if there was more behind SPOTs’ numbers. His office was located on the fifth floor of the Engineering West Building, according to FAU’s website at the time. Labeled “copy room,” it was locked during his office hours on several occasions, to which he never showed. Over several weeks, he didn’t respond to multiple emails or calls to his office phone number, which was never able to accept messages. A secretary in Engineering West told the UP that Reddy’s office, along with other engineering professors’ offices in the building, had been damaged during hurricane Irma. As a result, his office had been moved to the fifth floor of Engineering East on the opposite side of the university, explaining why his first office was labeled “copy room.” The UP tracked Reddy down one afternoon when he was leaving Engineering West, getting into his white Toyota Camry that was parked in a handicapped spot. He was supposed to be in his office at that time across the university. He was hunched over and soft-spoken, but still quick-witted. After an explanation of the numbers the UP uncovered, he agreed to an interview. Several weeks later before meeting, he changed his mind and declined to comment.
FAU’S BEST TEACHERS … SORT OF
TEACHING EVALUATIONS AREN’T PERFECT, BUT HERE ARE SPOTS’ BEST TEACHERS FROM EACH OF THE UNIVERSITY’S SEVEN UNDERGRADUATE COLLEGES. JOE PYE | SENIOR WRITER
R
ELYING ON a numerical figure shouldn’t be a real way to measure a professor’s teaching abilities, said Richard Freishtat, teaching evaluations researcher and director of the University of California Berkeley Center for Teaching and Learning. But when determining promotions, the university looks at the average score to SPOTs’ sixth question — “Rate your instructor’s overall teaching effectiveness in this course: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, and Poor.” Looking at over 6,500 classes from summer 2016-17, we put together a list of SPOTs’ best undergraduate teachers from each college, based on those whose classes had the most “excellent” response rates.
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COLLEGE OF ARTS AND LETTERS: JULIE A. WARD
Khaled Sobhan
Julie A. Ward received a score of excellent from 90 percent of her spring 2017 Topics: Sculpture Studio class. She attributed this to her flexible teaching styles. “As area head of Sculpture for the past four years at FAU I allow myself to shift back and forth from professor to facilitator, facilitator to professor. I teach students how to make all kinds of things such as sculptural objects, videos, 3D prints, and sound installations,” Ward said via email. “The thing I love most about my job is teaching FAU’s art students to think critically, research ethically, and trust their own ideas.” Because FAU doesn’t publish SPOTs’ written reviews, we had to find students’ opinions elsewhere. Across the board, her anonymous reviews on RateMyProfessors matched up with SPOTs’ results, with students saying: “Professor Ward gives honest feedback to push work to the next level. She is good about giving a good balance of assignments to develop different skills - conceptual art, craftsmanship, reading, research, roundtable discussions, presentations, and writing assignments. We had 3 projects, but we had time to do one more.” And… “Julie is a great instructor, and will get you out of your comfort zone. She is driven and committed to her field.” Cynthia L. Wilson
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COLLEGE OF EDUCATION: CYNTHIA L. WILSON Cynthia L. Wilson received a score of excellent from 100 percent of her spring 2017 Collaborations with Professionals and Families sections. Wilson credited part of her success to her students. “My college students’ own shared diverse experiences provide concrete opportunities to talk about and experience the diversity of school-aged students with disabilities and their families,” she said via email. “My desire is that they leave my class with a holistic point of view about teaching that asserts K-12 education is at its best when professionals and families collaborate.” Students’ reviews on RateMyProfessors reflected SPOTs’ numbers: “LOVE Her. Great teacher. Very intelligent woman. The best in the ESE department.” And... “Excellent professor. Yes you have to do some work, but it is definitely not unnecessary or unreasonable. Her outline is clear, she answers your questions and makes you feel completely at ease.”
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING AND COMPUTER SCIENCE: KHALED SOBHAN
Naelys Luna
Khaled Sobhan received a score of excellent from 38 percent of his fall 2016 Soil Mechanics classes. This was the highest class response rate with excellent marks in the college over a year. Sobhan didn’t respond as of publication time to request for comment. Students on RateMyProfessors agreed with SPOTs’ findings: “Soban is one of the best teachers that you will have in Civil Engineering at FAU, he explains things thoroughly and repeats many concepts. He even hints in class what will be on the exam. Study a lot though, Soil Mechanics, Foundations and Pavement were all very hard classes but learning it right can help you pass the FE, so stuck it up and study” And... “Soil mechanics is hard. He will give you test! Study from notes and DO NOT MISS CLASS. Whatever he talks about in class, it will be on the test so the book is of not much help. He is very passionate and energetic in class so you won’t fall asleep. Stay above average and do well on the final and the consolidation lab. Bring voice recorder if needed.” Michael J. Gauci
COLLEGE FOR DESIGN AND SOCIAL INQUIRY: NAELYS LUNA Naelys Luna received a score of excellent from 81.8 percent of her summer 2016 Mindfulness and Social Work sections. She didn’t respond as of publication time to request for comment. Overall, students’ reviews on RateMyProfessors supported her SPOTs’ score: “Professor Naely is one of the best professors at FAU. I commend her ability to be humorous, which relaxes her students, and this makes everyone in the class participate comfortably. She inspires and empowers her students. I wish that I was able to take her again. Please take her if you are not a student who wants a handout.” And… “Very knowledgeable and helps you learn the concepts. She is passionate. You can tell she loves what she does and it helps to have that in a professor; it helps you learn. Also, she is hilarious! Absolutely wonderful! Take her, you won’t regret it!”
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COLLEGE OF BUSINESS: MICHAEL J. GAUCI
Julieta Maria Di Mase
Michael J. Gauci received a score of excellent from 100 percent of his fall 2016 Government & Not-For-Profit Accounting classes. Gauci said he feels “blessed” to be teaching at FAU. “It is such an honor to teach Governmental and Not-for-Profit Accounting to FAU’s accounting undergraduates,” he said via email. “I am passionate about teaching this niche subject matter to help students pass the CPA exam and go on to become contributing members to South Florida’s business community. I strive to be the best mentor I can be to my students.” He added, “I am genuinely excited to be a part of FAU’s College of Business and School of Accounting, and I would not change it for the world. Serving at FAU is a blessing to me.” He received mixed reviews on RateMyProfessors: “Your grade is based on only 3 exams. There is a lot of material covered but it’s made worse by errors in the answer guide and use of outdated terminology. When you’re learning something completely new like governmental accounting, you don’t need this added confusion. He should really change the book to something that’s more concise and up to date.” And… “Mr. Gauci is an excellent teacher with real stories and cases from the real world. He is extremely helpful but the material is not easy. Blackboard videos and audios are very helpful. Do the homework and study and there is no reason not to do well. He curves his exams a bit which was a nice surprise.”
COLLEGE OF NURSING: KAREN WISDOM-CHAMBERS
Karen Wisdom-Chambers received a score of excellent from 75 percent of her summer 2016 Professional Development in Nursing I: Ethical and Legal Perspectives of Caring classes. She remains grateful to FAU, her alma mater, for her understanding of the subject. “As a graduate of FAU, College of nursing, returning as an instructor is very important to me as I am able to impart some of the knowledge to (my students) that I received from the highly qualified educators here at FAU,” she said via email. “What I enjoyed most about teaching the Legal & Ethical Perspective of Caring course was the opportunity to teach our students to recognize their individual beliefs and values and develop their personal philosophy of nursing emerging from the College of Nursing philosophy of caring in which they can use to guide their profession,” she added. “Also, to understand the legal, ethical and moral responsibility of the nurse in the healthcare settings.” Students’ reviews on RateMyProfessors matched up with SPOTs’ numbers: “Best professor at FAU. She is extremely caring and she will go out her way to help you if you don’t ask. I would definitely take her again!” And… “Professor Chambers is amazing. Don’t expect to just “float along” and hope to do well, because that won’t happen. You should put in the work to receive a good grade.
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COLLEGE OF SCIENCE: JULIETA MARIA DI MASE Julieta Maria Di Mase received a score of excellent from 75 percent of her spring 2017 Practical Cell Neuroscience sections. As of publication time, Di Mase hasn’t responded to request for comment. And despite her high marks, she hasn’t been reviewed on RateMyProfessors.
CONNECTING THE SPOTs HOW CAN FAU IMPROVE THESE TEACHING EVALUATIONS? AFTER STUDYING THEM FOR A SEMESTER, I HAVE A FEW SUGGESTIONS. JOE PYE | SENIOR WRITER
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FAU isn’t getting the most out of its teaching evaluation. And that’s not saying it can’t, it just needs to do a little leg work. From what I’ve gathered from my reporting, the data I’ve uncovered, the research I’ve read through, and the experts and students I’ve spoken with, I’ve determined a few things that FAU should consider implementing to get the most out of its Student Perception of Teaching survey. IGHT NOW,
ILLUSTRATION BY IVAN BENAVIDES
PUBLISH THE COMMENTS ANONYMOUSLY Stop hiding what students are saying about their classes and give them more of a voice. After all, they’re the paying customer. Teachers are able to view students’ comments with the names removed in order to improve their teaching, so why not students? They would be able to better choose their courses if they could read other students’ opinions, especially since not all teachers are reviewed on RateMyProfessors. On top of this, there would be more incentive to fill out SPOTs, improving the response rate. Right now, only 58 percent of FAU’s 30,000 students complete the survey on average, according to FAU assistant provost for Academic Operations and Planning James Capp. This increase would lead to a more comprehensive teacher evaluation, meaning FAU would have more data with which to judge teachers when it comes time for job reviews. Since many universities have avoided publishing the written reviews because they may contain identifying information, there should also be a statement on the form warning students to avoid including personal info, keeping the reviews anonymous.
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Kevin Wagner, current Faculty Senate president, took over in 2017. He confirmed that during his time, the Senate has not talked about SPOTs. The Senate is “concerned with matters of general university educational policy, including curriculum, academic calendar and schedule, admissions, registration, and degree programs,” according to its website. It also provides advice on “any organizational changes or policies affecting more than one campus, college, or division,” which SPOTs fall under. So why aren’t its members continuing to discuss it? These talks need to take place, and not just once a semester. If SPOTs are to continue as a measure used to judge teachers’ performance, FAU needs to consistently reexamine their supposed effectiveness. And if the survey isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do, changes need to be made.
HAVE TEACHERS TALK ABOUT SPOTS IN THE CLASSROOM Some students have told me they think the school should make SPOTs mandatory, which I don’t agree with. Requiring something will make it just another assignment that students won’t want to invest too much time in. (Like I’ve said already, publishing students’ comments will increase the response rate as students will see SPOTs as useful to their future at the university.) Instead, teachers should do a better job of explaining what SPOTs are and how they can benefit both FAU and the student body. Instead of the typical, short, and vague explanation given, teachers should thoroughly describe the evaluation so that students are more informed on the subject and more likely to complete the survey. The university encourages teachers to have students fill out the survey on their phones in class. This trend should continue, but teachers should also increase the frequency with which they mention SPOTs the last few weeks of each semester (when the survey is open to students).
REVISIT AND CONSIDER UPDATING THE SURVEY
Philip B. Stark, teaching evaluations researcher and a professor of statistics at the University of California Berkeley, said that SPOTs in their current form are vague and need reformatting. He suggested including questions that would reflect students’ experience, rather than asking them to make “value judgements.” For instance, instead of asking if the teacher “showed respect for students,” (question five) SPOTs should ask if students felt respected. Below are some of the survey questions he felt would make for a stronger teacher evaluation.
VALIDATE THE EVALUATION
At universities around the country, teaching evaluations undergo a process called “validation.” This is when a researcher and/or expert determines if the survey is doing what it’s supposed to do. In their original form, SPOTs were validated. But when large changes were made to the survey in 2014, the updated evaluation did not undergo a validation process. (For a brief history on the survey, check out the SPOTs FAQs on page 4.) As said by former Faculty Union President Robert Zoeller, plucking out a few questions from the original, validated SPOTs does not make the new, shorter survey validated. FAU has plenty of members who would be capable of validating SPOT evaluations, from teachers/researchers in the College of Education to psychology faculty, according to Zoeller.
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HAVE THE FACULTY SENATE DISCUSS SPOTS MORE FREQUENTLY
I reached out to assistant provost Capp, who said he’s unsure but “believes it’s a regular topic of discussion” at the Faculty Senate. Despite this, Zoeller, a member for years, couldn’t recall the last time it was discussed at the Senate, which meets four times each semester. Zoeller said he recalls in 2014 and 2015 — when major changes were made to SPOT evaluations — it seemed like the Senate was “in a hurry” to make a decision and to his knowledge “they haven’t since.”
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James Capp
Assistant provost for Academic Operations and Planning
Could you understand the teacher’s material? Could you read their handwriting? Could you hear their voice in the back of the classroom? Did you go to their office hours? Compared to other courses, was there more or less work? Are you more excited by the subject now or when you started? Was this an elective? Do you plan to take another elective in this field?
Regardless, something needs to change. Either the questions, the question number, or even the entire survey type itself. There are plenty of other survey types out there that could be administered online. I admit that the amount of work it would take to change the system in place would be immense. But what point is there in continuing to use a tool that isn’t as effective and beneficial as possible? If implemented the right way, SPOTs could be a (more) powerful tool in measuring teaching effectiveness in an effort to improve the university. But it would take a dedicated and passionate group of faculty members to slowly make that change at FAU. But I don’t see any major changes taking place anytime soon...
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