demanding, or to have standards that are too high. lndeed, the more invalid the device to assess the quality of instruction, the better, from the point of view of administrators, because invalid and vacuous SNEFs--SNEFs that do not cogently assess instructor-mediated student learning--are sensitive to student likes and dislikes (2). SNEFs thus induce faculty to get "good" ratings by teaching in ways that please the students, but which may not educate them. This explains why SNEFs almost never ask students whether the course was demanding, the assignments difficult, the tests probing, the standards high (all variables linked to increasing student learning), or whether they developed an ability to identify the main ideas and significant implications of a subject, or a respect for unconventional interpretations of material studied, or an understanding of the most fundamental or important ideas of the subject (Renner 128).
The SNEF, as currently used in higher education, is a device for making classrooms comfortable for and marketable to students who are increasingly under-prepared for and disengaged from rigorous academic study. Consumer satisfaction trumps student achievement. As Haskell puts it, the SNEF is a "powerful tool in assuring classroom changes that lead to the retention of student tuition dollars by assenting to student consumer demands and of parents who foot the tuition bill" (Haskell 12l; see also Damron "Three" 19).
Since faculty have had these fraudulent devices imposed upon them, they might as well exploit SNEFs for their own advantage. As Damron contends, "In an atmosphere in which good teaching is equated with high student ratings, it makes sense in terms of simply survival to weave into one's classroom performance virtually anything that elevates such ratings" (Damron "Instructor" 20). Haskell also seems to accept the calculated exploitation of SNEFs: "If a faculty can chose teaching styles, grading levels, and course content, s/he will naturally prefer choices that are expected to result in higher SEF scores; if faculty know the variables affecting their careers, they will meet these criteria" (13).
Everyone knows that SNEF ratings are contaminated by all kinds of influences irrelevant or hostile to effective teaching (see Renner 129 for a partial list). But if you cannily manipulate these factors, you can boost your evaluation ratings without raising your workload. Should you feel ashamed about this, keep in mind that higher scores will make you happy, your chairperson happy, your Dean happy, your Provost happy, your President happy, and the taxpayers happy. It's a win-win-win situation. Follow my advice and have a Great Evaluation Experience (or GEE!).
CAREFULLY MANIPULATE THE IMPRESSION YOU MAKE ON THE FIRST DAY OF CLASS!
"First impressions," Haleta reminds us, "are crucial for students, the teacher, and the teacher-student relationship," influencing the classroom climate for the entire semester or term (16).
In this regard, nonverbal communication may be more important than what you actually have to say. Students, you see, often arrive at summative judgments about us very quickly--well before we have a chance to tell them about our grading policy or course organization, and before we can display our knowledge or fairness. Ambady and Rosenthal, for example, "have shown that students arrive at opinions about teachers within seconds of being exposed to these teachers. The students' impressions are highly correlated with end-of-semester ratings generated by other students who had these same teachers for an entire course" (Ceci 5). According to Drew Weston, who summarizes these studies in Psychology: Mind, Brain & Culture (1996), "the correlations between initial nonverbal ratings [the videotapes of instructors that students had seen were silent] and eventual student evaluations are as near perfect as one finds in psychology" (288).
Here are some tips about how you should act and look as you enter the classroom for the first time to make a lasting impression that will improve those end-of-the-semester r