The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Undergraduate Educational Policy and Curriculum Committee
Minutes

Thursday, October 13,2016

Attending: Mary Adamek; Helena Dettmer; Denise Filios; Kathryn Hall (staff); Lena Hill; Meena Khandelwal; Cornelia Lang;Jacob Simpson; Shaun Vecera; Rachel Williams

Absent: Jerald Moon; Roland Racevskis

  1. The minutes were approved from October 6.
  2. The maximum number of allowable transfer hours recommended for a major was briefly discussed. UEPCC members recommended that the College investigate setting a ratio of required CLAS s.h. to the number of transfer credits accepted for a major, with the policy returning to UPECC at a future date.
  3. Jacob Simpson, UISG Executive Team member; UISG City Council Liaison; and UEPCC member; and Chloe Cable, UISG Senator; Chair of the UISG Academic Affairs Committee; and member of GECC, presented a proposal from UI Student Government (UISG) to make ACE evaluation results from some questions available to students. The intent of the proposal is to help improve the classroom experience for undergraduates while also giving students a public platform to discuss excellence in the classroom.For a number of years, UISG has advocated sharing results from course evaluations. Previously, instructors could choose to include the “Student Core” on their evaluations, with the results for the core made available to students through UISG. However, the results were presented in such a way that the final information was hard to decipher and, with the change to online evaluations, the “Student Core” was eliminated from the ACE form. Many institutions now make student evaluation form results available to students. UISG would like to publish the results of the CLAS Core questions and the GE Core questions since these are required by CLAS on all evaluation forms and thus they are clearly essential.The instructor’s scores could be made available on MyUIafter logging in with the HawkID, with results embedded under the instructor’s name. This could encourage students to review the reportedscoresbefore enrolling in a course. Making ACE scores available would also help students see the importance of completing the evaluation forms. Now students might think that the forms have no purpose since the studentsnever see the results of their feedback. Other methods of publication could be considered, but written comments would be omitted regardless of the publication method. UISG had originally also proposed optional midterm evaluations, which would make student feedback particularly useful to instructors. However,this idea is not feasible since ACE would include the midterm results in the final statistics for a course, even though the forms were optional.

UEPCC members thanked the students for their involvement and for bringing this important issue to the committee. The students’ concern about the quality of teaching and their desire to be involved are very commendable.

Discussion then focused on concern about thebias that appears in studentevaluations; bias is a serious issue, especially for instructors from underrepresented populations and for women. Evaluations can contain rude and unhelpful commentsclearly made without an intent to give constructive feedback. It can be difficult to interpret such comments and to read the evaluations in a helpful manner. Publishing ACE resultswithout a context might not help inform students about an instructor’squality of teaching since the results might simply reflect this bias.

UEPCC members noted that a single set of poor evaluations could causea worthwhile course not to be taught in the future; the course could be cancelled for low enrollment and the instructormay therefore be prevented from gaining valuable experience.This could discourage innovation in the classroom.Likewise, the instructor of any given course often rotatesand negative comments about one instructor could be easily taken out of context and applied to a different instructor who also teaches that course in a later semester or to another course that the poorly-rated instructor teaches very well.Finally,the students enrolled in a course contribute to its success or failure by their participation and engagement. Evaluations cannot fully capture thecomplex dynamics that may make students dissatisfied with their learning experience in a course.

Members were also concerned about the private nature of evaluations since they form a part of instructors’ personnel files. For this reason alone, the formsshould not be made public; doing so would violate confidentiality. If part ofa personnel file is made public, what else could next be requested for publication? The committee then discussed other ways for students to make a difference.Students could, for example, talk to the instructor or to the departmental chair about issuesor go to the College with complaints. Admittedly, both of these strategies can be intimidating and time-consuming. UEPCC members then suggested that UISG might hold open forums or panel discussions with faculty about best teaching practices to encourage a dialog among instructors and students, with students able to voice some of the problems they have encountered in classes at UI. Additionally, departments and instructors could work with the Center for Teaching and use faculty meetings to discuss teaching issues.Focusing on mentoring graduate student teaching is also essential to foster better teaching among future professors. Team-teaching is another way instructors canbe inspired and share ideas about pedagogy. Students and instructors are often separated by misconceptions about the other group and openly discussing these perceptions might be very helpful.OnIowa! includes a discussion about faculty roles and seems to help students understand how college is very different from high school. UISG could also write an open letter to faculty toencourage some of these changes. The committee added that student satisfaction is important and listening and talking with students is crucial to helping students to be empowered and engaged in their own learning. The committee ended its discussion by encouraging the students to continue to find ways to provide feedback and dialog about teaching with instructors.

  1. The meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,

Denise Filios, Associate Professor, Department of Spanish and Portuguese

Secretary for UEPCC

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