scholarly journals The mechanization of teaching: Teachers’ metaphors and evaluation in Japanese tertiary education

2011 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Peter Burden

Twelve ELT university teachers reflected, through using metaphors, in interviews about the use of Student Evaluation of Teaching surveys (SETs) in their respective universities. Studying teachers' metaphor reveals their first-hand experience of how they were affected in their teaching by SETs. Metaphors suggest that SETs do not match teachers’ conceptions of teaching as an art. Such evaluation has caused relations between teachers, administrators, and students to fracture due to competitive ranking. While participants accept formative evaluation as a necessary process to give insights to teachers, they wish for a more open, improvement-focused, cooperative, specific evaluation. They want more teacher involvement and more dialogue between teachers to discuss the results of SETs to aid the reflective process for change. 大学でELT担当の12名の教師にインタビューを実施し、各自の大学での学生による授業評価(SETs)についてメタファー(比喩)にて述べてもらった。教師のメタファーは、学生による授業評価(SETs)で各々の教え方にどのような影響があったかの率直な考えを表している。メタファーは、学生による授業評価(SETs)と教師側の技術としての‘教える’という考え方は合致しないということを示唆している。このような評価は、競争的な評価をすることで教師側・大学当局側・学生側の関係を壊している。被験者(つまり学生)側が必要な過程として形成された評価を受け入れて、教師側に新たな教育的ひらめきをもたらさなければならない、その一方で被験者側はより開放された、改善を目的とした、連携された、特定の評価を望むのである。被験者側のコメントでは、教師側の更なる向上の必要性、また教師側と学生による授業評価(SETs)の結果について意見交換をし、授業の変化をもたらせたいとしている。

Author(s):  
Rentauli Maria Silalahi

Student evaluation of teaching (SET) has been proven to improve teachers’ teaching practices and students’ learning experiences despite being used commonly for accountability purposes. Indonesian teachers’ perceptions of SET, however, remain largely unexplored. This qualitative study therefore investigated how four Indonesian university teachers perceived SET, how SET impacted their teaching practices and what roles they believed the university should play in implementing SET properly. The participants taught English to undergraduate students in an Indonesian private university. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and analysed using qualitative methods. The teachers perceived SET positively, had made conscious changes to improve their teaching practices and students’ learning, and believed the institution had facilitated teachers in meeting students’ needs, especially during the campus closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to a transition to online learning. The institution where the participants taught implemented SET only for formative or improvement purposes. Using SET for such purposes is important as it is more likely to cause teachers less pressure and anxiety. Hence, teachers are willing to act upon the student feedback. Meanwhile, using SET for accountability purposes may create extra work for teachers and make them feel manipulated and untrusted.


Author(s):  
Emmanuel Ifeanyi Ani

Student evaluation of teaching (SET) has been around Universities in the Western and Eastern Hemispheres for a few decades now. SET is making in-roads into the Nigerian tertiary education sector. In this project, I identify two arguments (or assumptions) behind the opposition to the institution of SET in Nigeria. I demonstrate that these arguments/assumptions are incorrect and their worries not enough to scrap the programme. I also show that opposition to SET has been witnessed elsewhere before SET gained acceptance.


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