Once a semester, students have the chance to turn the tables on their teachers by grading them on their performance.
Many students may think of teacher evaluations as Scantrons that mean getting out of class 15 minutes early, but new teacher evaluation forms aim to provide Cal State Long Beach professors with more in-depth feedback.
The old forms used about 10 questions to gauge the effectiveness of teachers based on a one-to-five rating system. Now, the forms have seven questions based on the rating system and also include three short-answer questions. The forms, which are not Scantrons, can be filled out with a pencil or pen.
Teri Yamada, CSULB President of the California Faculty Association (CFA), said that a new form was long overdue.
“The old forms we had for a really, really long time,” Yamada said. “The scoring from one to five just wasn’t that helpful. Now there are seven boxes on the scale which allows for more nuance.”
Multiple students who have already used the new evaluations said they did not notice any remarkable difference between the new and old forms.
Senior economics major Alex Guerrera said that students do not take the evaluations seriously.
“The test is basically the exact same except for a few specific questions that ask for written answers,” Guerrara said. “But if you weren’t going to fill out the ones before, you won’t answer these either.”
Guerrara said he thinks students do not feel they are effective because teachers do not seem to care about them either.
“They don’t matter,” Guerrara said. “I’ve had multiple teachers tell me they barely look at them.”
Other students, like senior kinesiology major Kristin Taylor, said that they welcomed the change as a step in the right direction.
“There’s more of a chance to give tangible feedback; it’s not just bubbling in circles,” Taylor said. “If students fill them out thoughtfully, they could actually be valuable in a classroom.”
Taylor said she thinks the short-answer questions will be more effective at getting responses than the open-ended space for comments that was on the old form.
“The old forms gave them a rating but didn’t tell the instructor what they were doing right or wrong,” Taylor said.
Remo Colindrus, a senior graphic design major, said that teachers have to be open to criticism for any evaluation form to be effective.
“At the end of the day, teachers have the final say,” Colindrus said. “Either they are going to take the advice or they won’t.”
Senior athletic training major Krystal Gomez said she has had multiple professors take it upon themselves to get constructive feedback from their students, which she thought was much more effective.
“Teachers who do really care what students think make their own forms to find out what’s working and what isn’t,” Gomez said.
Francisco Portillo, a senior health care management major, said he thinks the evaluation forms are an essential part of keeping students engaged in their education.
“Some teachers have mentioned that they have made changes based on comments from students,” Portillo said. “When it’s for a class that I care about or enjoy, I always try to tell them something that was helpful to me.”
