A time to reflect

Read this short case study from Bruce Macfarlane’s 2004 book Teaching with Integrity: The ethics of higher education practice (Routledge), in which a fictional lecturer, ‘Stephanie’, receives feedback on her teaching in the form of student evaluation forms and a peer observation. Consider:

• Which aspects of Stephanie’s teaching practice appear to be the most ripe for development? 

Accessibility, the feedback seems to suggest she is sticking with one mode and not considering the many diverse needs of those in the room. Her assumption that a lack of understanding of the assessment criteria is because of low attendance rather than that people absorb information differently. That some might simply need it explained or represented in a way other than a huge body of text in a course handbook. Her view is very narrow and simplistic and doesn’t account for the differing learning preferences or neurodiverse students she may be teaching.
Instead of sitting with the discomfort of things she is maybe not so good at she deflects and blames the students. Because admitting she has room to improve would mean acting on that and doing something about it and she doesn’t seem to have the time or inclination for either.

• What could Stephanie do to move past her defensive reaction? 

See it as an opportunity to make some changes, remove herself from the equation, and imagine she was reading someone else’s feedback and offering them advice or a way to move forward.

• What, for you, are the most interesting questions this case study raises?

Whether or not teaching should be an enforced or encouraged element of academic research, it feels to me a little like the idea (and in fact reality) that in teaching often the only progression is to become a head of department, head of year or other progressions into management. This is problematic because not everyone is built for or interested in that. The same applies here, having knowledge does not automatically mean teaching is a good fit. Yes she might have a proven track record in research but there is no mention of any experience that lends itself to the act of sharing that knowledge or enabling students to learn.
Stephanie may be an excellent researcher but does this automatically translate into being an excellent lecturer? absolutely not!
Has she understood the difference between speaking at a conference and speaking to a room of students? it seems maybe not. Or even the difference between addressing a church congregation and addressing a room of students. Her experience and indeed life all seems to have pointed her to this narrow version of what teaching is.

I actually struggle a lot with feedback, and the way it’s collected. Because there is so much more nuance that often gets missed, especially in a standardized form like in the case study. I understand this method is used partly because of the need to keep feedback forms short and not labour intensive for students, but, there has to be a more meaningful way to capture this information. Stephanie herself didn’t give the arguably more meaningful feedback she wanted to on the teaching observation, because it was easy enough not to based on the questions the form asked. So where is the value in that?