How to deal with poor teaching evaluations on academic job market? I will enter the academic job market after having received poor teaching evaluations for my first and only independently taught class. Some of the criticisms were well founded, and I am trying my best to improve the class in the future. The teaching evaluations for the next (and hopefully improved) installment of the class will not be available in time to include them in my job applications. 

While I am still inexperienced as a teacher, I don't think the evaluations are entirely fair. My predecessor agrees with me that the class is one of the most challenging classes to teach (it's a mandatory statistics class for terminal masters students without a mathematical background). 

How should I deal with these teaching evaluations in my job application? Is there any way to provide context for the hiring committee?
Everyone has a tough time the first several years of teaching. It takes several years for people to find their feet. We can't all be Richard Feynman right out of grad school.

Still, a search committee might note your poor scores. You can compensate in several ways:


By remarking on this in your Statement of Teaching. I would try not to dismiss or shift blame, but tackle it head on. "In my first year of teaching, I received poor scores in Nuclear Physics 101. These mainly centered around X and Y. I have revised my syllabus to handle X and will dedicate more time to discussion around points Y. I have also changed how I handle Z, which should alleviate both problems, etc. etc. I have also decided to be less of a jerk."
By delivering a stellar guest lecture when you're brought on campus for your interviews.


Note that #1 and #2 both involve practices (statement of teaching; guest lecture in a class) that not all universities and colleges follow. Generally the ones that care about teaching require them and the ones that don't don't. 

For example, I teach at an R1 where undergraduate teaching is ... deprecated. We mainly care about your research and that's what we evaluate our candidates on.