Profile-establishing teaching evaluations

There are two problems with most Teaching Evaluations (TE) today: (i) students, who lack professional training, are asked to provide evaluations on the professional capabilities of the teachers and (ii) students are asked to evaluate teachers along the same standards for every discipline. This paper explains how both problems can be solved by TE questionnaires that aim at deriving classroom dynamic profiles rather than evaluating the teaching or teachers. The effectiveness of the teacher may then be measured by the deviation from desired profiles without prejudice to demanding teachers and subjects that are inversely related to student popularity. This allows for evaluations to vary with the subject matter taught while relieving students of the burden of assessing the teacher’s professional capabilities. In order for such TEs to be done efficiently, such an evaluation form should require students to rank statements that describe classroom and learning situations rather than to have them assess certain qualities on a scale.