These are the “dog days” of the semester—the ones before Thanksgiving break and the one week of classes or so left after it. Everyone has a lot to do and students tend to be exhausted.
When I reach the end of a semester, I often feel a bit nostalgic, as I know that I will likely never see my students again or if I do, they might avoid eye contact with me on campus.
During the last week of class, I aim to recap the class for them, meaning I will try to repurpose what they learned with me and tell them how they might apply it in the future. We contemplate, “What will you do in a future writing class when you don’t have to write up a biography of yourself or a readers’ description?” What did we do together as a class? What writing principles did you learn?
“If you see a short woman wearing a hat and rolling a black laptop suitcase behind her as she walks about campus and you don’t want to say hi to me, then just walk in a different direction,” I advise. “Since I will never see you again, I would like to offer some pithy advice,” I say, such as “being brave” and “learning how to think for yourself” while they are away from their parents, which might be advice they won’t hear from other adults in their lives.
At the end of the term, our students are sent numerous emails that ask them to evaluate the course and the teacher. I’ll be honest—I don’t take a lot of stock in student evaluations. Students are not trained teachers and they don’t know how to evaluate teachers, nor are they told how to do so constructively. I do care about my students and what they think but I often take feedback from them better when they say it in person so I will ask for it during the semester. I’ve advised my graduate students to ask students for feedback at the midpoint of the semester as well so that students feel like they are being heard and their opinions are respected.
If you are a student reading this, your teachers are human. My therapist says 18-year-olds don’t see their parents as humans yet, ha ha. Actually, it’s not a joke—I am the parent of two 18-year-olds so I can bear witness. (I also joke to my students that their cerebral cortexes aren’t fully formed until they are in their mid-twenties, so…) But we older adults are human and sometimes words sting. So if you are a student and you are going to write a (very) critical evaluation, then perhaps you can back it up and explain why and what you would have wanted instead.
If you are a teacher, tell your students why evaluations are important to you—such as you are on the job market, you care what they think, and also that you need specific advice in order for evaluations to be helpful. Perfunctory responses like “it was great” aren’t that helpful even if they aren’t terrible. I tell my students I want “claim-reason-evidence”—back up the claim you make about the class and give me specifics about what worked and what didn’t. I think students can rise to that challenge.
We all have heard that evaluations can be biased if the professor is a woman or is a person of color—I remember years ago one evaluation said I was “cold and unapproachable.” Wow, that seems like a gendered comment. If possible, you might mention this problem to your students as well, though I’m not sure how to do so. Also, if you are a tough or strict teacher (like myself), some students may not have warm and fuzzy feelings about you. I am a teacher who has inspired hatred as well as adoration. And no, I’m not looking at my Rate My Professor page until I am on my deathbed, as I informed my family. (Incidentally, my page went up almost immediately after I started teaching at Cornell, whereas I’ve noted some teachers at Cornell don’t have one at all. Hmm.)
On the last day of class, I offer my students some mini donuts or other snacks to celebrate the end of term, because I teach small classes and they aren’t likely to do that in any other class. I’ll ask them what they want and sometimes they say munchkins or coffee. (I can’t offer them “happy hour” like I do with my graduate students.) So why not? I’m happy the term is almost over (if not wistful) and they are likely too stressed out to realize that their moments together as a class are over, no matter how great the class. During that celebratory class, I’ll give them class time to do evaluations during the middle of class so that they aren’t doing them at the last minute and want to bust out of the classroom. Yes, these gestures could seem like sweet-talking them, but in the end, students get to decide what they write.
When teachers read their evaluations, we might look for patterns. These are evaluations written in a particular moment by an 18-year-old. If there are a few one-offs maybe they are less important than overall patterns? Sometimes I have been offended by some comments on my evaluations, but at the same time, some of those stinging comments have inspired me to transform my courses for the better. If there is some glimmer of helpfulness in a comment, then maybe it could be helpful in the way evaluations can be useful—potentially improving our teaching for future students.
After a semester has ended, even years later, some former students email me to (ask for recommendations, yes) tell me how much I have affected their lives or (somewhat rarely) even give me hand-written notes. I still keep in touch with one student from several years ago who is now in graduate school. Two of my graduating seniors from last Spring won awards for their essays and I am so proud. So maybe the reality is that students don’t appreciate us as much as they should until they have had some time away from us—rather like sending kids off to college.