An All Too Familiar Tale

She takes her teaching responsibilities seriously; she is committed to making a difference in her students' lives. She prepares her syllabus meticulously, with class-by-class activities and assignments, the most relevant and up to date readings, illustrative cases, experiential activities. She prepares thoroughly for each class, working hard to draw out her students, engaging them, encouraging them, challenging them.

Some days are better than others, but all in all she is feeling good about the work she is doing and about her vocation as a professor. And then it hits! The student evaluations. The thing about these evaluations is that for the most part they are positive, some very positive. 5's on a 5-point scale with notations written in the margins -- "best course so far," "appreciated your command of the material," and so forth. But then there are the others, the 2's and 3's, along with the comments -- "too shallow," "too many hours wasted in class discussion," "not enough substance from the professor," "I was expecting more." The professor draws little solace from the positive evaluations, the 3.9 overall rating, the glowing comments from several students. What keeps her up at night and continues to trouble her during the day are those 2's and 3's, the negative comments, the criticisms and complaints, and worst of all, the fact that she was blindsided since none of this came to the surface during the life of the course.

So here we have an all too familiar classroom tale: The Righteously Screwed Student ("I paid my money, I came to class, I was entitled to a solid education, and you, Professor, didn't deliver.") And on the other side, we have The Unfairly Judged Professor (