By Claire DeRoin ~
With end of the semester evaluations coming up for professors and instructors, I can’t help but worry for Morningside faculty.
Students in the majority of my classes spend their time not listening to lectures, but browsing Facebook. I’ve looked around during class and found that I was the only person genuinely paying attention to the lecture. These same students complain when they get D’s on tests and can’t seem to figure out why the material seems so foreign. You won’t find any pity here!
I don’t doubt that when evaluations get passed around, these students will check the “Highly Disagree” bubble when faced with the statement: “I made progress in this subject area” and “I would rate this teacher as exceptional.” Whose fault is this? Not the instructor’s!
Normally, I wouldn’t care what other students do. If they want to pay their tuition money and not learn anything, it’s no problem for me. The problem comes when good instructors receive bad reviews from irresponsible students. Why should professors potentially miss out on tenure or other rewards due to students that shouldn’t even be answering the questions in the first place? If a student doesn’t pay attention to class material or the professor, how are they supposed to know what answers accurately present the class?
That is, if the students are paying enough attention in class to know that they’re supposed to take the evaluation.
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