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[adjunctannie]

So here is my situation: I teach at 3 institutions, about 15 contact hours a term, 3 preps. I am meeting the VP and President of one of the colleges this week for a full time temporary position starting in August. Hooray!!!!!!

It is temporary, but likely to become permanent. The current prof is moving into administration and they are holding the position in case he chooses to return to the classroom.

I will finally be in a position where I can focus on one schools work. I will have at least two preps. One of them will be taught two ways: full contact and hybrid format.

I did very well on the interview and the practice lesson. I was told that my presentation was by far the best, but there are concerns about student evals. I followed up with data and copies of evals from other schools which had some really nice compliments in them. (Best instructor in the department! Fabulous!)

At this particular school I have been teaching an intro science class for several years. We meet once a week for 4 hours at night. The class is required to enter the nursing program is therefore high stakes. Students have no experience in the discipline, and should be somewhat literate in the science by the end of term. It is very demanding, and my student ratings are low. I HAVE BEEN TOLD THEY MUST IMPROVE IN THE FIRST TERM OR ELSE. (They must just show improvement, there is no number goal.)

So here are my questions, and I am seeking good advice from you all.

Attitude check: I am seeing this as a victory, since it is full time employment. I will try not to be afraid of the student evals, but will do my best to be sure they are good. I will try to accomplish this by being really well organized, friendly, available for help and clear on what I want the students to know.

Should I be more afraid? I am concerned that I am setting myself up to fail. There will be no other opportunities for me to get full time work if this doesn't work out. This is my chance. The other institution just hired 2 new people and no retirements will occur in the next few years. One thing that counted against me in that search was the lack of full time work, and I am an aging adjunct.

Would anyone even consider saying no to the job under these circumstances?

Practical questions: How do you maximize student ratings?

We will discuss mentoring an so forth before the term starts.

Thanks for your advice.

Adjunct Annie

[larryc]

First, congratulations.

The best way to keep standards high while getting good evals is to demonstrate respect and understanding for the students. And it turns out that the best way to get students to write about your respect and understanding on your evals is to tell them in class how much you respect them. "Thanks for taking my class. I want to tell you how much I respect and admire you. I know how hard it is to combine this night course with your busy lives yadda yadda yadda." 

Some of you will denounce this as buttering up the students. But really it is just a little margarine.

[kedves]

Congratulations on the job!

Student evaluations are discussed in the In the Classrooms area.  I've done some mini-summaries of student evaluation research over the past several months that can be found by doing a search for the term "evaluations" with the blue search tab, upper left, my moniker, and restricting the results to the In the Classrooms board.  

It is possible to improve your ratings, definitely.  How to do that depends on what your weaknesses are.  Do you have a sense of those from the areas in which you scored low, or from patterns in the comments?  When reading comments, it's easy to be distracted by a student's wording, so it's best to make a chart and keep count.  Were your ratings in this course consistently low over time, or did they vary?  Do you know how they compared to the ratings of other instructors for that course?

Required high-stakes courses cause students a lot of anxiety, which can work against you in evaluations, but "easier than expected," an ability to help things "click" for the students with good examples and assignments, can raise evaluations.  Day 1 and the syllabus are very important, as is the practice of remembering to tell them why they are doing each thing you ask them to do.  I agree with Larryc's advice.  The first time I told a class in an off-hand way, "The great thing about my job is that I get to talk to smart people all day about ideas--you," I was shocked by the students who told me how much they appreciated my saying it.  I feel that way, so why keep it to myself?  Now I build several statements like that into the course throughout the semester to recognize that I know I am asking them to spend time on my course when they have family, friend, team, work, etc. obligations as well as other schoolwork.

Your students probably feel very similar to the way you do at this moment.  But you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  You can do it.

[atalanta]

The best way to keep standards high while getting good evals is to demonstrate respect and understanding for the students.

Absolutely. This is the single most important thing you can do. Show genuine concern for the students, and make sure they know that you CARE about them and are willing "go the extra mile" to help them succeed in the course.

There have been other threads on how to maximize evals:

[On edit: I was going to try to provide links, but you can follow kedves' suggestion to find past threads.]


A few specific things that help -- some of which have been posted previously on other threads:

1. As LarryC says, a little margarine helps. If you want to butter them up, at some point (close to eval time) spontaneously tell them what a great class they have been to work with, and how much you've enjoyed getting to know them. Hint that you somehow like them better than your past classes.

2. If you make everything available online at the beginning of the term, they will not appreciate it (i.e., take it for granted) and will probably make unreasonable demands for more online stuff that you don't want to prepare. So instead, try this:

Withhold a few course materials from your web site (review problems, practice exam, outline of topics to review for exam, useful links) and then reveal them one by one at a time when they will be most useful. Announce to the class, "I had a few requests" (even if you haven't) "...for some practice problems so I've put together a set of extra problems with solutions to help you prepare for the exam. They're now available on the course web site." The students will think you are being very responsive and doing extra work just for them.

2. Students ALWAYS want some sort of review sheet for exams. If you don't already have one, you can do this: take the detailed outline from your syllabus and replace it with a bare bones outline. Then hand out the detailed outline just before the midterm or final exam and call it an exam review sheet.

3. The next trick is almost like cheating; I try to avoid it but it works if the course evals are done before a substantial final exam. Give them a midterm exam that is fairly straightforward and a little easier than average. It makes them all feel like they are doing well in the class. Then you can "even things out" with a slightly harder final exam. [But don't slam them with a crazy-hard final. That's not nice.]

4. You can tweak your evals slightly by judiciously using keywords from the evaluation questions in class. Example: I used to get low marks for the item "Professor provides constructive feedback throughout the course". So now, every time I review homework or exams in class, I announce that I want to "take a few minutes to give some constructive feedback". My scores shot up even though I didn't really change anything.

If you can tell us exactly which items on the evals give you the most trouble, we can probably fine tune our suggestions to help.

Good luck!

[spork]

As others have said, turning eval questions into statements and repeating those statements ad infinitum to students during the semester will help.  Even writing words like "feedback" on the board has an effect.

[mountain_ivy]

I have found that explaining the uses of the evaluations makes a positive difference.  Before I distribute them, I tell students the results are reviewed by my Chair and Dean; that I use them to refine and modify the course.  I also explain that I do not see any results until the following semester, so their grades are in no way affected.

In the past, I would leave the room, but no longer do so, as some students tend to get silly.

I also am very clear, and public, about following the rule about having a student collect the forms, place them in the envelope, seal the envelope, and then deliver to the appropriate person. 

[gbrown]

adjunctannie,
Congrats! Do take it. One tiny note of caution... we've had several folks move into adm and then come running back to teaching after a semester or two. I suspect this would be less if those candidates had been in adm, moved into teaching, and then were moving back... still, I'd keep all other doors open for a f/t t/t job just in case.

That said, you will do better than you imagine you will. I made the move from adjuncting to a f/t contract position 3 years ago and have excelled. Do ready yourself for political b.s. and you'll do great!

[teatree]

Why is it Temp? They need a new person to fill the professor's duty (and unlikely coming back from administration), so the logical way to have a new TT. Is it automatically promoted to TT after knowing the professor do not come back?

If I have another chice, I would think carefully about it.

     

[conjugate]

Attitude check: I am seeing this as a victory, since it is full time employment. I will try not to be afraid of the student evals, but will do my best to be sure they are good. I will try to accomplish this by being really well organized, friendly, available for help and clear on what I want the students to know.

Should I be more afraid? I am concerned that I am setting myself up to fail. There will be no other opportunities for me to get full time work if this doesn't work out. This is my chance. The other institution just hired 2 new people and no retirements will occur in the next few years. One thing that counted against me in that search was the lack of full time work, and I am an aging adjunct.

Would anyone even consider saying no to the job under these circumstances?

What's the worst that could happen?  You go back to adjuncting just as you are doing now, except that the other institution doesn't need much in the way of adjuncts with the two new people.  Go for it, and hit it hard.

That first semester, especially, you must go out of your way to address whatever issues were problematic in your evals, and don't let up.  There was a thread somewhere that discussed ways to do this, and I will refer you there rather than repeat lots of the advice given therein. 

What's the teaching load in this full-time position?  If it's less than 15 contact hours, then you're in great shape.  If it's fifteen, you still haven't lost anything.  By all means go for it.  I wish you the best.