Feeling like a bad TA

[RNadine21]

I just read my evaluations and my self-esteem as a teacher has plummetted.

Now I knew that since my students were not required nor had any incentive to complete evaluations, I'd get people who were either very happy or very upset with me. That knowledge did not prepare me for what I read.

One student noted that I didn't care and just sat in front of the room. I personally didn't spend the class (it was a lab) walking around because I was usually trying to catch up on work, but all kids have to do is raise their hand and I come running. I stayed after class with students to make sure they understood the material, and I made it known that I would do the same for all of my students. Others felt that I didn't know what I was talking about or doing. Granted, it was my first semester teaching and my hardest semester of classes, but I'm genuinely upset that I have students who thought so poorly of me when I was doing my best to balance everything. I already know some of my faults that I plan on fixing this semester, but now I don't know what to do. I thought I was doing decently well but now my confidence is shot. Advice?

[fuzzylogician]

It's hard, but don't take it too seriously. As you say, it's usually the very happy or very upset who take the time to complete evaluations, especially the open comment section, and unfortunately the very upset students are usually louder. Some people can be very hurtful and not understand how seriously some of us take these comments. The first time TAing can be difficult (I would even say 'daunting' was appropriate for how I felt!), and the only way you learn is from experience. Look at this as an opportunity to grow and learn - what to change, what to keep, and maybe also how to better represent yourself in front of your students. You could be doing everything right, but a lot goes on behind the scenes, and students either don't notice it or don't care. Take the time to write up your experiences from this semester, including specific things that you would change (you should do this right after each class you teach, so that when you go back the next year/semester you'll know where you got stuck last time, what was harder for the students to understand, where you should give a better example, etc). If you haven't done that this semester, at least you'll have your notes from whatever you remember now. You can use that in future semesters, and you'll improve with time and experience. Some of the comments could help you here, others may just be mean and useless. It happens, and you have to learn to choose what to take from them. Don't let them get you down!

[emmm]

Ignore them -- you're working much harder than they are, and you know much more than they do. What they really want is for you to do all their work for them.

Then they would think you were a good TA, but then you'd REALLY be a bad one.

[wtncffts]

Ignore them -- you're working much harder than they are, and you know much more than they do. What they really want is for you to do all their work for them.

Then they would think you were a good TA, but then you'd REALLY be a bad one.

I don't know, this seems rather dismissive. I think fuzzylogician has it exactly right: don't take them too seriously, but look to what you can improve for the future. Reading your description, you yourself suggest that at least one of the criticisms was essentially right, about you sitting in front of the room (though not about you not caring). Surely, you aren't that pressed for time that you have to do your own work while running a lab; I can see very easily why some students might be irked by that. Perhaps you should be walking around, actively asking and soliciting questions and checking up on things.

Were there any positive comments? As you say, voluntary evaluations usually mean you get either the very positive or very negative, but if there were no positive comments, you should consider what you could change for the future.

[robot_hamster]

Oh man! I think I'm scared now!

[emmm]

I don't know, this seems rather dismissive.

I guess it is, a little, but from what the OP wrote, it seemed as if her efforts were going completely unrecognized in her evals. Of course, there's always room for improvement, but the OP already indicated an intention to improve and an awareness of possible shortcomings. So . . . no point letting the evals create negative feelings. And I am a bit tired of students who want to know what is going to be on the test, if I'm going to grade the HW for "correctness," if the recent quiz with a relatively low average will be curved (it won't help, the better students got As already), while at the same time don't take notes, want to study only off powerpoints that are provided to them, make it clear that they have made no effort to get the book in a timely manner, have not read the syllabus, etc., etc. I get 1-2 really good students every quarter, but that's about it.

Edited January 19, 2011 by emmm

[wtncffts]

I guess it is, a little, but from what the OP wrote, it seemed as if her efforts were going completely unrecognized in her evals. Of course, there's always room for improvement, but the OP already indicated an intention to improve and an awareness of possible shortcomings. So . . . no point letting the evals create negative feelings. And I am a bit tired of students who want to know what is going to be on the test, if I'm going to grade the HW for "correctness," if the recent quiz with a relatively low average will be curved (it won't help, the better students got As already), while at the same time don't take notes, want to study only off powerpoints that are provided to them, make it clear that they have made no effort to get the book in a timely manner, have not read the syllabus, etc., etc. I get 1-2 really good students every quarter, but that's about it.

Oh, believe me, I have had my fair share of obnoxious and/or lazy students, and shared in many gripe sessions with fellow TAs. I certainly don't think the OP is as 'bad' a TA as the negative comments may make him/her think. I just tried to point out one criticism which I could easily see as being legitimate on the students' part. Not that the TA doesn't care, but certainly the impression given if a TA is 'sitting in the front of the room' doing his or her own work isn't all that great. Walking around and actively engaging with the students may be a better method.

[emmm]

the impression given if a TA is 'sitting in the front of the room' doing his or her own work isn't all that great. Walking around and actively engaging with the students may be a better method.

Yeah -- I can see how that might come across as "I'm busy, don't bother me."

[RNadine21]

Thank you all for your comments!

I definitely understand how sitting at the front of the room looks like "I don't care." I suppose in that sense everyone saw that I dropped things the second someone asked for help, so I assumed everyone understood that I'm more than happy to help, but I don't want the situation to turn into me doing everything for them, I'd like them to at least try by themselves first (this is in addition to my admitted attempts to catch up on my own work, which will not be a problem this semester). The largest chunk of my time was definitely spent helping students, but I'll start walking around more and engaging my students.

I definitely had many positive comments, both to my face and on the evaluations, but I suppose the negative comments hurt me because I genuinely care about how my students do. I felt like I did everything but hand them As - I started adding extra credit to quizzes, gave out more extra credit assignments, curved practicals, stressed that I'm more than happy to help in any way, made study guides (which other TAs put down). I actually sat with my grade sheet before turning in grades stressing because I had no other way to hand out points and people were still barely passing.

It also sucks that my first class of the week had the most critiques. Although it hurts, it doesn't surprise me because my first class was always a mess. I would always have an idea on my head of how the class would go, what my kids could handle, etc....it rarely ended up that way.

I guess overall I'll just do a better job of preparing and interacting with students.

[emmm]

I felt like I did everything but hand them As - I started adding extra credit to quizzes, gave out more extra credit assignments, curved practicals, stressed that I'm more than happy to help in any way, made study guides (which other TAs put down). I actually sat with my grade sheet before turning in grades stressing because I had no other way to hand out points and people were still barely passing.

Just another thought -- students like extra credit, but if you give out too many extra credit opportunities, I think they lose respect for the class. Also, they might feel that they don't really have to try their hardest and can let the work slide, since there will be extra credit to rescue them later. You may also see that the students who need the extra credit the least are the ones who always take advantage of it. I've been there, done that. I'm in a department that encourages us to give out extra credit for things like going to events sponsored by the department, but I'm deciding I really don't like extra credit much at all. If you are going to use it, use it sparingly. Anyone else have a better experience to report with extra credit?

[anonacademic]

I wouldn't worry about it. Read the comments and honestly ask yourself, Is this BS, or is this a good observation that I will take into account next semester? You're a new teacher, you will not be perfect. My department head at my CC said, "In your first few weeks, you'll make every mistake there is to make." So true.

On the other hand, never forget that these students are NOT evaluators like a fellow TA or professor - in other words, their "evaluation" could be a little more....colorful. One way that this can manifest itself is through - gasp! - out and out lies. See this article, originally published in the Des Moines Register: Some Students Lie on Professor Evaluations.

See also:

Teacher Evaluations Aren't Constructive (Daily Utah Chronicle)

How to Read Student Evaluations (Inside Higher Ed blog post)

How to Beat Student Evaluations (eHow) - I LOVE the idea of passing out evals when the slacker students aren't there! Genius.

At the end of the day, remind yourself that you will not be kicked off your TA position because of evals, which is more than us lowly adjuncts can say. I look at student evals kind of like the GRE - somewhat useful (I did learn some new words) but mostly an inexplicably necessary evil set up by faceless moneybags in the administration.

Good luck! I'm sure this next semester will be better!

[starmaker]

You may also see that the students who need the extra credit the least are the ones who always take advantage of it.

This is often true. The people who really need the extra credit, and are also motivated to do well, are probably people who are struggling with the material (since they have good work ethic but still need extra credit). This means that they're working their butts off on the required work, and don't necessarily have much time to do extra work. The people with time to do the extra credit are the people who are breezing through the material anyway (or the people who don't care enough to do better than a slapdash job on the required work, but those people probably won't bother with the extra credit).

I agree with the people saying don't take it too much to heart, but do look for how you can improve (because who among us can't improve?).

[anonacademic]

And I am a bit tired of students who want to know what is going to be on the test, if I'm going to grade the HW for "correctness," if the recent quiz with a relatively low average will be curved (it won't help, the better students got As already), while at the same time don't take notes, want to study only off powerpoints that are provided to them, make it clear that they have made no effort to get the book in a timely manner, have not read the syllabus, etc., etc. I get 1-2 really good students every quarter, but that's about it.

I now give syllabus quizzes. Double proof and no excuses. Oh, you didn't know my late policy? Well, on January 19, you did. I also gave them an email assignment, because, despite the fact that I teach writing, my students seem to think that "okkkk so i missed class i was puking what did i misss????" is appropriate, even at the end of the semester. And I'm now refusing to answer emails until they are in the format I specified (in other words, that they employ complete, grammatically correct sentences, give their name, and address me).

Students seem to be extra vicious towards young women. My experiences vs. a male counterpart illustrate this, but it seems fairly substantiated in the Chronicle of Higher Education. If you fit that mold, take that into account. Students evaluate female teachers who are authority figures as bitchy, but love male ones who have the same demeanor.

[mandarin.orange]

I am a bit tired of students who want to know what is going to be on the test, if I'm going to grade the HW for "correctness," if the recent quiz with a relatively low average will be curved (it won't help, the better students got As already), while at the same time don't take notes, want to study only off powerpoints that are provided to them, make it clear that they have made no effort to get the book in a timely manner, have not read the syllabus, etc., etc. I get 1-2 really good students every quarter, but that's about it.

You will DEFINITELY have this demographic in class, so take everything you read with a grain of salt. Also, if there are more lax TAs around who simply tell the answers to kids, let them out of lab 1-2 hours early, etc. that word gets around and your students are already coming into lab with a chip on their shoulder. The first time I taught lab sections, I was surprised by how juvenile and downright mean some of the comments could be (e.g. "she SUCKED.") Some took a little decompression to actually see they had a point, and think of how I could change things (e.g. "she seemed bored to be here"). Note that 6 years later, I still remember them word-for-word.

Developing good teaching demeanor, and learning not to take these things personally, are both skills that can take years to learn. I know people into their 3rd, 4th, 5th year as professional lecturers and tenure-track profs who still dread their evaluations b/c of the snide comments from the above-mentioned demographic. I am in my 6th year teaching HS and finally began getting consistent positive feedback from peers, admin and the kids by about year 4. If you actively try to improve each time around, things get better. It DOES help to actively circulate during labs, esp. if you don't want word-for-word similarity between partners and group members, and strive to get them to think for themselves.

[Bumblebee9]

Awesome articles. TAs in particular are vulnerable to negative student evals because they are new (and students can sense this) and young and idealistic. I've worked for 5 deans now, and they all said the same thing--except for the one at the for-profit professional school, but that one doesn't count--you should not have perfect evals. If you as a TA, adjunct, instructor, or professor have perfect evals, you are not doing your job. Your job is to get students to learn, which is often a tension-filled process that some students react negatively to. This is reflected in their evals. It doesn't mean anything.

If you have consistently negative evals all noting the same weaknesses, that's another story. But very few teachers fall into this category. I, personally, have only observed one instructor in the last four years that could not handle teaching and was, in fact, making the students stupider when they entered the classroom because she was giving them misinformation and being clear as mud. This was a TA and still, after the head honcho observed her, she retained her TAship for the following year with a bit of extra training over the summer. She actually received pretty nice scores on her student evals because she wasn't making them do much work... Food for thought about how students try to "punish" and "reward" us.

What are more important are peer, supervisor, and dean observations. These are the real people that can give you feedback on your instructional techniques.

I wouldn't worry about it. Read the comments and honestly ask yourself, Is this BS, or is this a good observation that I will take into account next semester? You're a new teacher, you will not be perfect. My department head at my CC said, "In your first few weeks, you'll make every mistake there is to make." So true.

On the other hand, never forget that these students are NOT evaluators like a fellow TA or professor - in other words, their "evaluation" could be a little more....colorful. One way that this can manifest itself is through - gasp! - out and out lies. See this article, originally published in the Des Moines Register: Some Students Lie on Professor Evaluations.

See also:

Teacher Evaluations Aren't Constructive (Daily Utah Chronicle)

How to Read Student Evaluations (Inside Higher Ed blog post)

How to Beat Student Evaluations (eHow) - I LOVE the idea of passing out evals when the slacker students aren't there! Genius.

At the end of the day, remind yourself that you will not be kicked off your TA position because of evals, which is more than us lowly adjuncts can say. I look at student evals kind of like the GRE - somewhat useful (I did learn some new words) but mostly an inexplicably necessary evil set up by faceless moneybags in the administration.

Good luck! I'm sure this next semester will be better!

Edited January 22, 2011 by Bumblebee9

[RacinReaver]

That list of ways to filter out your evals are a bunch of great ideas, but unfortunately they don't work well when they're computer based. My undergrad school switched about halfway through my time I was there, and they noticed both a decrease in the quantity of responses (duh) and a slight decrease in average rating since you wound up with only the extremes actually filling them out.

I remember my biggest frustration the first time I TAed a class was a fellow grad student who took the class pass-fail, didn't turn in any homeworks, never showed up to TA sessions, and barely got a pass. He blamed me for poor preparation and all sorts of other things when he never even showed! (I know it's him since, well, I'm at a tiny school and TAed a class with only a handful of people, and the personal comment that was left was a bit of a giveaway.)

[RNadine21]

That list of ways to filter out your evals are a bunch of great ideas, but unfortunately they don't work well when they're computer based. My undergrad school switched about halfway through my time I was there, and they noticed both a decrease in the quantity of responses (duh) and a slight decrease in average rating since you wound up with only the extremes actually filling them out.

Yea, this was the first year my school switched to computer-based evaluations, and my lab coordinator noted that there were obviously less responses. At least my undergrad let you view grades early as an incentive. I'm definitely doing more walking around now and putting ten times more effort into preparing for labs, but now I constantly feel like my students are judging me. I can't shake the feeling :/

[SyntheticOrganiker]

Don't try to get over the feeling, your students are constantly judging and evaluating you. I think people are quite correct, and so are you, about not doing your own work during the lab period. I know that if I had a TA and they were not actively involved in coming around and asking if everything was going well, I would assume they really didn't want to be there.

[meankney]

Ugh. Just got my TA evaluations back, as well. It was my first time TA-ing, so I didn't expect them to be great and overall, they weren't too bad. Some students were really happy with me and some offered really great constructive criticism. Then there were a few students who were completely brutal in the comments section, and of course, I can't seem to shake those off. I've identified my main problem. Since it was my first time, I wasn't as confident about my teaching ability and I was really nervous about making sure I was always giving them the correct information. To some students, that came off as me having absolutely no idea what I was doing and that I had no knowledge regarding the subjects being taught. It was an intro class, and I can assure you that I was totally comfortable with the information, so it's a shame that I couldn't show that and inspire more confidence. In the end, though, I think getting the comments has been really helpful and this semester, I'll try harder to be confident, prepared, and more enthusiastic. Hopefully it will show in my next set of evaluations!

[explodingstressball]

but I don't want the situation to turn into me doing everything for them, I'd like them to at least try by themselves first (this is in addition to my admitted attempts to catch up on my own work, which will not be a problem this semester).

I have found when working with students that it is often very helpful to explain your goals in terms of people trying things first. In other words, I have found it to be a worthwhile experience to stay clearly something along the lines of: "I am here to help you, and I am delighted to help. However, part of this experience is for you to learn and occasionally make mistakes along the way. So while I will help you with any and every question you have, I hope that you will give yourselves the opportunity to experiment first!"

I think it helps set up the notion that there is no expectation of instant perfection on the student's part. It also helps them to understand why you might not leap up at the first sign of trouble. That being said, I've never taught nor been in a university-level class with a lab component, but I do find the idea of the TA sitting in front of the class doing their work a little boorish. In a lecture class, I would find it inappropriate for a TA to be sitting in the front with a pile of books writing a paper

[explodingstressball]

but now I constantly feel like my students are judging me. I can't shake the feeling :/

Sorry, I didn't see this comment. I don't mean to be obtuse, but yes, your students are constantly judging you. There is constant nervousness about grades, getting work done, what the TA thinks of them, etc. I strongly remember this from being an undergraduate.

And, on the same token, you are constantly judging them. I mean, someone has to award a grade at the end of a semester, right?

[Gravity]

I've noticed a difference in my evals between large classes and small classes. I TA'd a lecture once and I got a lot of comments along the line of "I guess she did her job. She sat there and took notes, but I guess she wasn't supposed to be teaching," or "The test questions were unfair!" and then they'd rate me at a 1 out of 5 regardless - ha. The positive comments were from the two students who bothered to show up to my office hours (both of whom were doing quite well, anyway - why is it always the ones who are doing well who come in beforehand, and the ones who are failing who come in after there's nothing we can do?!).

I also TA'd a lab section with about 10 students. I felt horrible because I was trying to do my coursework and thesis-writing and all of that at the same time as helping them out, so I felt neglectful. I often showed up running on no food and 1-2 hours of sleep, but they were all very generous. I got the best suggestions for improvement from them, too.

Anyway, I agree with everyone above who said that we're learning, and we shouldn't be expected to get perfect reviews from the students. I think it is especially true when we're TAing a huge lab section or lecture because we have little chance to work one-on-one with any of the students.

[The Dudester]

There have been many, many studies done on the nature of student evaluations. They nearly always reflect the expected grade of the student. Don't take it too seriously.