“We did not have to stress about our grade but instead we were able to just work”: Student Evaluations of Learning
The evidence on student evaluations of teaching (SET) suggests that this sort of feedback is deeply biased in the U.S. against women educators, Black educators, and international educators; in other words, using SETs for evaluation in higher education is a misguided tradition that cannot be justified by the sort of scientific inquiry and research that the academy claims to embrace.
In both my levels of teaching—about two decades each as a high school teacher and now in higher education—I have always sought student voices and feedback. Those reflections, however, prompt students’ perceptions of their learning. And the validity and reliability of that feedback, of course, is best determined by me through the lens of what learning goals we were pursuing in any course.
Each fall, I teach two sections of my first-year writing seminar, Reconsidering James Baldwin in the Era of #BlackLivesMatter, which culminates in a portfolio assessment for their final exam grounded in minimum requirements for receiving a grade in the course:
Exam/ Final Writing PortfolioResubmit all REFLECTIONS (1-15) on exam date noted above. You may include any other artifacts of work throughout the semester to support the grade you deserve in the course.Submit the following through email attachments:
- Final drafts of E.1, E.2, E.3, and E.4 as email attachments; be sure to CONTINUE READING: “We did not have to stress about our grade but instead we were able to just work”: Student Evaluations of Learning | radical eyes for equity
