4
Tuesday, June 12, 1973
University Daily Kansan
Liberal Arts to Require 'Feedback' for 1.700 Classes
By CONNIE PARISH
Kansan Staff Writer
Next year nearly all University of Kansas students taking courses in the College of Science will have the chance to evaluate their professors using the KU Curriculum and Instruction Survey.
This section of the survey deals with your personal assessment of some of the basic elements of this course. If your instructor has approved publication of his or her results, your responses to these questions will appear in the student guide to instructors and courses. For questions inappropriate to this course, darken the N/A) space on the answer card.
This is because the College Assembly, the governing body of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, recently passed a motion to approve uniform application of this survey.
Nancy Harper, director of KUCI5, explained what this would mean. She stated that the survey was initiated by the Student Senate in 1989. Then the Senate set it up as a separate project and funded it. Since then, the survey has been administered the survey on a voluntary basis.
1. For me, the subject matter of this course was ...
THEN IF the instructor desired, the tabulated results of the survey were published for student use in the publication "Feedback." Three issues of "Feedback" have been published and a fourth is being planned for distribution next fall.
The resolution just passed will make one valuable change, Harper said. The survey must be administered in all courses of more than six students in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. The College includes thirty-two departments and thirteen constituting approximately two-thirds of the course offerings of the entire University.
(1) of little value
(2) of some value
(3) valuable
(4) very valuable
(5) extremely valuable
2. 4
According to a count Harper had done, next year the survey will be administered in approximately 1,700 courses just in the summer. The number of any professors in the other schools within
the university participating on a voluntary basis.
ALTHOUGH THE survey must be administered in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the results will still not necessarily be published in "Feedback," but researchers have three options. 1) Results can be returned to the instructor, the department head, dean, and printed in "Feedback." 2) Results can be returned to the instructor, department head, dean, but not printed in "Feedback." 3) Results can be sent to the instructors only.
Even though the results won't necessarily be published for student use, Harper said the resolution would make the results that were published more valid, since they would be judged against all the data collected. Therefore the University means
Stairs to Lead to New Classes
will be more accurate, and Harper said it
should make "Feedback" more valuable.
classrooms will be ready for occupancy,
but the faculty offices won't be finished
until Thanksgiving or later.
The fourth edition of "Feedback," which will be distributed next fall at enrollment, will be free. The first three editions cost the company $15,000 each. All of the 5,000 copies that were printed each time were sold. Next fall 15,000 copies will be given away, which Harper explained was possible because a new "Rolling Stones" cut printing costs considerably. Will cutting prints considerably.
Wesco Hall, which is still under construction, a building that will be partially constructed when chosen by the city.
THE ORIGINAL goals of the KUCIC were threefold, Harper said. First, it was set up to improve instruction. One way it attempted to do this was by suggesting faculty members go to the Office of Instruction services for improvement in specific areas.
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Second, "Feedback" was aimed at aiding students in choosing courses. Third, Harper said, the survey was to aid the administration, since the Promotion and Tenure Committee uses the results if the instructor so desires.
However, students interviewed by the Kansan indicated they were skeptical about "Feedback's" ability to help them choose classes. Linda Schneider, Kansas City, taught in a common complaint, "I didn't find it used; since the courses needed weren't listed."
Linda Kraus, Lawrence junior, thought it might help if all instructors were required to give the survey. "I don't think very many wouldn't want the results printed," she explained. "It's just that many didn't bother handing it out."
ONE STUDENT, Mark Dickson, Atchison freshman, said he found "Feedback" really useful for choosing one class, but he had to decide the rest of his schedule before consulting it.
Several students indicated that they paid more attention to the advice of students who were in a math class.
James Babcock, Chanute senior, said that he felt that his adviser was more trustful.
Students who had already chosen a
6 Orientation Sessions Planned
The University of Kansas will host six freshman orientation sessions sponsored by Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday last three weeks of June.
Small group interaction, according to Myers, will be the focus for this year's project.
John Myers, director of the office, said he was expecting between 1,206 and 1,400 men and women who will be freshmen this fall to attend the two twoday sessions.
EACH FRESHMAN will be one of 15 to 20 students guided by one of the 12 staff members. The group gatherers will give students a chance to discuss individual
interests and problems while getting acquainted with campus geography and the academic and social sides of University life. He will also select courses for the fall term.
The first day of each session the students will have an opportunity to talk informally with KU students, who will serve as counselors. The second day, they will have physical exams, have photos taken for student identification cards, have an open-book placement tests and hear about student activities, government and housing.
THEY WILL also attend academic deans'
Bankers Study Profitability
The 34th annual Bank Management Clinic will be held today through Thursday at the University of North Carolina.
The theme of this year's clinic is "Profitability Through Flexibility." Many students, including, banking's future; kidnap, rassage; lending's costs; types of credit; the Rural Development Act; Small Business Add-ons; fund transfers; funds transfer system; and agriculture.
The general sessions and meetings will take place in the Kansas Union and in the lounges of Hashinger Hall, where the clinic participants will stay.
About 500 bank officers from throughout Kansas are expected to attend.
Attending from the School of Business as guests of the Kansas Banker's Association
will be: Harold Krogh, professor of business administration; Midred Young, placement director for the School of Business; Ron Ferguson, Lawrence graduate student; Michael Fuller, Lawrence graduate student; Jim Trigg, Ottawa graduate student; James Stokes, Chicagowale graduate student; Jim Koch, Lawrence graduate student; Elden von Lehe, Linn graduate student; and Bob Bond, Lawrence graduate student.
Among the speakers will be Lynn Taylor, dean of the Kansas School of Religion, who will give the invocation at Woodruff Auditorium, and John Conard, director of Relations and Development, who will give the greetings from the University.
"Previews were just a lot of fun. I didn't get anything out of them," commented one
Two KU students interviewed about previews expressed different views.
meetings, talk to advisers and make tentative plans for fall enrollment.
"I found them to be very useful," said another. "I wasn't confused so much."
MYERS SAID that reaction to last year's previews was overwhelmingly positive.
Through questionnaires distributed to participants after the previews last year, 97 per cent of those attended indicated they would attend the sessions to a friend, Meyers said.
The first session is scheduled for Monday and today, and the others will be held alternately on Monday-Tuesday and Thursday-Friday during the three weeks.
The students will make Gertrude Trussle
Hall their headquarters during
Pollack school.
THE OFFICE of School Relations has also planned a number of informal activities for parents who accompany their sons or daughters to Lawrence.
major, such as Phil Thornton, Kansas City, Mo., senior, indicated that they already knew about instructors in their own department, and for filler courses "Feedback" didn't tell enough about the instructor's teaching method to be useful.
On the first day of each preview session, parents will be able to attend a lunchon and discussion of KU student services with members of the faculty and staff.
JOHN FISHER, Monticello, Ind, senior consultant another complaint about the data collection process.
Guided tours of the KU Museum of Art,
Spencer Research Library, the Kansas
Geological Survey and the Space
Research Center are also available for
parents.
"The questions were too cut and dried. They didn't go into the psychology of teaching so much as how much work was done in the course," he said.
Thornton also indicated that the things he found objectionable in instructors couldn't be found.
Joe Lordi, Philadelphia graduate, also complained about what the questionnaire measures. "It measures only technical skills," he said, and statistically qualities only intuited or felt."
Myers said openings were still available for each of the six sessions, and requests were processed quickly.
He felt that the idea of an evaluating tool might be useful if something were done with it.
"TENURE KEEPS many bad professors in," Lordi said, "and if this was a way of rectifying that, I would be for it. Perhaps all of us would have to it and all results should be published."
Dee Dokken, Derby junior, voiced another complaint about "Feedback." "I filled out the survey, but I don't consider myself a very good judge of the instructors." On this basis she was skeptical about the usefulness of the overall survey.
KU faculty members interviewed also were not entirely without criticism of the assessment process.
MICHAEL GAINES, assistant professor of biology, administered the survey and found it very helpful. He thought the diagnostic section at the end was a particularly valuable tool, since the instructor could see his strong and weak points.
He has one objection to it, however.
"The only problem is that sometimes results don't depend on teaching ability as much as on the instructor's personality." If he is a performer in class, he is often ranked more exclaimed, but if he is low-keyed he is often rated lower by the students.
Nevertheless Gaines felt that administering the survey and printing its results should be mandatory, since he thought that those who had submitted to it previously had done so because they felt they were pretty good teachers.
*PERHAPS ITS'Cruel to make others subject to public embarrassment, but it's cruel to the students if there is bad teaching.," Gaines said.
He added that he thought the emphasis at the University was directed more toward research than teaching, which is sometimes detrimental to students.
Pay parity for Lawrence firemen, a particularly controversial local issue this spring during city election campaigning, and the owners' public attention in their meeting session.
Parity for Firemen May Flare Again
Representatives of Fire Fighters' Local Union 1896 plan to submit petitions to the commission supporting the firemen's stand seeking navy parity with the police.
In regular agenda business, planning commission items, a revised site plan for a bank at the northwest corner of Harvard Road and Iowa Street and a petition requiring sidewalk installation in Meadows subdivision are scheduled.
The commission meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. in the fourth-floor meeting room of the First National Bank Building, Ninth and Massachusetts streets.
According to Gaines, the biology department voted last spring to make administrative the survey and printing the report. Because of the department, but it was not strictly enforced, Lynn Nelson, associate professor of natury, agreed that the survey was useful to personally, and he, too, cked the diagnostic inventory section as especially helpful.
BUT HIS COMMENTS were not without some reservations. "Its usefulness depends on 1) the professor's willingness to take it into consideration and 2) the willingness of the student to take the time and thought necessary to fill out the survey honestly.
“When they get the opportunity to take the survey, many put thought into it. But a woman can do so very hard to deal with. Some simply mark in patterns and put no real thought into it, which makes it a waste of money and a burden.” Ms. Nelson said. “They do take it seriously,” she said.
John Guenther, assistant professor of education, thought all instructors shouldn't be required to give the survey. He explained that sometimes an instructor's own questions were more relevant for his own experiences and questions that have only a short response.
Richard Colyer, assistant professor of English, was definitely in favor of the idea of "feedback," but was critical of the questionnaire used.
HE EXPLAINED that he was one of the first to voluntarily participate in the survey, and thought an evaluating instrument should be used by all faculty at least two of their courses each year. But Colyer did not participate last year, but it is now it's not being well run, and it absolutely essential that you have a really good testing instrument."
He stated that one couldn't narrow the
number of questions to make it convenient, quick and easy and still have a good questionnaire. Coleray he thought the questionnaire, which was longer, was much better.
"Now there is not enough data to be valuable. Bedside, it is very helpful and much more revealing to have written a report in this manner rather than profile answers," Colyer said.
HE HAD A further criticism of the questionnaire.
"The biggest complaint from people I've talked to is that the survey gives students an opportunity to evaluate areas in which they are not really competent."
He thought the evaluations should be in areas where students are competent to judge, for example if the instructor had annoying mannerisms, how he handled class discussion or how receptive he was to questions.
Colyer explained, "For example, they are asked to evaluate your professional qualifications. But particularly in a beginning class the professor probably knows how to teach the student realizes, since teaching isn't a master of parading all your knowledge."
Colyer also thought the results of the survey shouldn't be made a matter of record to the administration. He suggested that results of a survey given in several classes should be given to the department head periodically, but the rest of the results should go directly to the instructor rather than other administrators.
He said that even "bum" teachers would probably try to learn something from his book, but would be more willing to do so if he was independent between the student and professor.
Colyer seemed to sum up a typical attitude when he said the idea of a survey as an educational aid is valuable, but it should be improved for utmost effectiveness.
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