TEACHING TO THE TEST:
Testing the Teacher

We have all cringed whenever new testing requirements have come down from on high. In the past few years the K-12 system has had to deal with the No Child Left Behind legislation, which sets specific and sometimes rigid standards for the knowledge base of public school students.  At the community college level there are new testing requirements set out by departments in their Student Learning Outcomes. These tests are supposed to help institutions of learning improve their teaching and find students who need help.

     Meanwhile, teachers themselves are also being evaluated within the workplace. For those on tenure track or probationary track, these teaching evaluations play a similar prescriptive role. A faculty member who is tenured or has undergone a time-consuming hiring search and interview process is not one that can easily be let go. And so college mentors work on giving instructive feedback and suggestions for improving one’s teaching. The hope is that these long-term employees will improve their classroom manner over time. However, in the case of adjunct faculty the evaluation process can sometimes be a test of whether a teacher should stay or go.

Students Rate You

     Adjunct faculty are aware of this trend, but they may not know to what extent their teaching can be tracked. With the new computer programs now available to administrators, the percentage “fill rate” (how many students sign up for a class as compared to the number that could be accommodated) of a faculty member’s classes can be followed, the student retention levels can be tracked, the distribution of “A” to “F” grades can be ascertained and how the teacher is perceived by students is available through their computerized evaluation scores.  Meanwhile, there are more public venues for student evaluations in the form of Pick a Prof or
RateYourProfessor.com, the results of which can cycle back in the form of a poor or high “fill rate” at the start of a semester. While a supervisor’s class visit, perusal of the faculty member’s self-evaluation, and comments on student evaluations should inform the write-up by that supervisor, these other issues cannot help but influence the report. Moreover, the final judgment of “needs to improve,” “meets standard” or “exceeds standard” can have a definite impact on the future hiring of that adjunct.

     While statistics have their place in the evaluation of “learning delivery systems,” they can be faulty when one is assessing an adjunct faculty member. Many of the entry-level courses in English and math are given to adjunct faculty, while full-time faculty can opt to teach the higher-level courses in a department. These entry-level courses often suffer from high attrition rates simply because students are not prepared for the rigors of a college curriculum.  Meanwhile, some excellent part-time non-credit teachers can receive negative scores on the computerized student evaluations because their students are not aware that a non-credit teacher, for example, will not be in “his/her office during office hours,” since he/she has neither an office nor office hours and is not paid to “assist students outside of class,” as a full-time faculty member is.

     How does knowledge of  statistical evaluation standards, which has become more and more common in adjunct circles, affect the institution of learning itself? Grade inflation, the increasingly familiar act of giving undeservedly high grades to students, has become a real problem in colleges and universities around the country. No doubt this is a result of some of the rating sites mentioned above as well as the contingent nature of our college teaching pool. Faculty who can be hired and fired “at will” need to keep their students happy.  Part-time faculty who are given the choice of teaching a course that is popular with students or another that is necessary but has a high attrition rate will opt to teach the well-liked course. Standards may be eased and curriculum may be narrowed to make students feel comfortable with the material. One of the questions on the Glendale College student evaluation asks if “the announced course objectives and what is taught is the same.”  Sometimes students do not even understand that the course objectives, explained on the first day of class, are what is being taught during the ensuing semester, so they mark the column “sometimes” on the form. Yet these bubbled-in student evaluations are going to be turned into statistics and can be used to determine the future of an adjunct faculty member’s job at the
college.

Mentoring Matters

     Evaluations are a valuable assessment tool when partnered with prescriptive mentoring by senior faculty. That includes suggestions for staff development courses that the faculty member should take, open invitations for classroom visits to demonstrate teaching styles within the department, and sharing of course material that might help the new recruit. Too often, however, the expeditious judgment that arises from computerized statistical data overrides the time and care necessary to nurture a new part-time faculty member. Division chairs need to produce the evaluation, and follow-up time is limited. With the growth that we are seeing in our community colleges we cannot afford to dismiss novice teachers or see them run for the doors because they received a “meets standards” on an evaluation with no offer of help or support. Evaluators need to educate and inform their part-time faculty that they are a valuable asset to the college, but that their teaching can be improved.  An adjunct teacher should also be told that an evaluation can be reviewed in light of changes that occur even before the next three-year cycle, as is stated in our contract. We know that assessment aids us in helping our students become better learners, but assessment tools need to provide an accurate picture, and we must then tailor our lessons to the students’ needs. The same can be said for evaluations.

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