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::steps up on soapbox:: (gee i just got up on one of these in the TKE forum)
Teacher Evaluations at my school are the silliest thing ever. First of they're given at the end of the semester, so if there's no room for the teacher to actually LEARN anything to improve their performance for you. Sure next semester's class may be better, but your class was still terrible. Also, it gives some students the opportunity to be bitter and petty and leave a "parting shot" of meanness to the teacher even if they did deserve it.
Also, Teacher Evals can really be influenced by final grades. Studeis have shown that a teacher can get a highly favorable rating if they give 80% of their students an A. It leads to grade inflation in order to get a favorable score for the faculty member.
Of course, the university will only use those on non tenured faculty. I mean really, at my school, there are tenured German faculty members that have been at the school for 30 years. One of them conistently gets poor marks, but she's got tenure, so nothing short of a massive disaster will dislodge her from the university, and poor teaching is not a massive disaster. I've even had tenured faculty not give us evaluations saying "I've been here 30 years, what more are they going to learn this semester".
Also, evals are only good against teachers who will return next semester. or who are teaching the same course again. Mason has a large proportion of part time faculty, some of which changes and shifts as the sands on a beach.
Personally, I feel they're an illusion of power and control given to students to make them feel better and that they have a voice in the process. But that's just me.
::gets off soapbox:: just my 4 cents (yikes this post was a bit long, hence the 4 cents)
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