I offer this post as a survival guide for reviewing your teaching evaluations for this fall’s classes. Student evaluations of teaching are flawed measures of teaching effectiveness and subject to bias. Studies show that students’ evaluations after five minutes of class are much the same as their ratings at the end of the course. No one believes that student evaluations should be the primary mechanism for evaluating teaching, and almost everyone agrees that a large number of consistently alarming comments (e.g., “Professor ________ regularly screams at and belittles students . . .”) are worth investigating. Most also agree that an effective faculty teaching feedback process would feature peer class visits throughout a professor’s career.

Student evaluations also are not going away, so we need a way to review them, learn what we can from them, and ignore the noise. This post offers a five-step process for doing so.

1. Pair up with a peer and agree to review each other’s evaluations. Many of us experience critical student scores or comments as painful; a peer can help us recognize that the scores are mostly good and the comments are mostly positive.
2. Set a goal of what you hope to learn from the evaluations. For example, if you have tried something new, your goal can be to ascertain the students’ experience of that initiative. Other possible goals can be getting feedback that will help you improve a particular facet of your teaching (e.g., if you are like me and have received feedback that you speak too quickly sometimes) or confirming a strength (e.g., your slides are valuable).
3. Review the evaluations quickly and have your peer do the same. Try to focus on the big picture and look only for two or three larger themes. Check your larger themes with your peer to make sure your identified themes accurately reflect what is in your evaluations.
4. Do a deep dive with a spreadsheet in which you compare this year’s and last year’s scores and comments.Create two tabs. On one tab, you will have three columns: (1) the prior year’s score in each category, (2) this year’s score, and (3) your takeaway if any. On the other tab, you will have two columns: (1) any comment (good or bad) in this year’s evaluations that you believe can meaningfully assist you in teaching the course better the next time you teach it, and (2) what you will do based on the comment. For example, if student scores were to indicate I was succeeding in my students feeling I respect them (an important goal for me), my plan of action would be to continue my practices of memorizing their names and getting to know them as individuals, celebrating their best insights and recognizing the expertise they bring to the class, and being encouraging when they are struggling through challenging concepts. As another example, if students were to report (as they have in the past) that I sometimes spoke too quickly in class, I would plan to consciously slow myself down, share that info with the next class, and work out a signal the students can use to indicate to me in real time that I am speaking too quickly.
5. Show your two tables to your peer and ask for their input.  Your peer can tell you if you are overestimating the significance of a small score change or a few comments. (Many of us do so.)

I invited you try this process once, and I hope it works for you. If you do try it, please reach out and let me know what you think.