Comments on: Inaugural Post: Being Evaluated

By: One Year of Blogging « This Gaudy Gilded Stage

One Year of Blogging « This Gaudy Gilded Stage — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 22:37:26 +0000

[...] anniversary of my blog. It was one year ago today that I posted my first entry, which was about being evaluated. In rereading that post today, I see that my blog started with a rant! I don’t think there [...]

By: thisgaudygildedstage

thisgaudygildedstage — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 16:27:56 +0000

Sometime soon I’m going to look at my evals from this past year — I haven’t read any of them yet. I’ve started a new policy of only looking at them once a year, at the end when I’m putting my annual evaluation dossier together.

Don’t tell anyone I said this, but I secretly think student evaluations are almost completely bogus. I think students should wait a quarter or two before looking back and evaluating a class. Having time to gain some perspective might be a much more accurate way of evaluating a course.

By: mistersquid

mistersquid — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 22:06:05 +0000

Speaking of evaluation, I have some evaluation of your debut entry: wow!

I’m so happy to, finally, hear your voice through your writing. Your comments about student evaluations are actually opposite mine. I feel somewhat badly for those who hate me, but I believe the cover of anonymity is giving them a chance to express their disdain for education rather than me. Or maybe they do hate me.

A meta comment: I am really like your writing style. Lucid, conversational, relaxed.

I look forward to future posts. Very awesome.

By: James

James — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 20:15:11 +0000

It is all I can do to look at the handwritten comments on the back of student evaluations, knowing the psychic devastation that the [infrequent but potent] negative ones cause me. Happily, these days I get over that feeling more quickly than I once did.
As for the reviews, all I can say is that it is in a funny way more gratifying to be noticed negatively than not to be noticed at all.