By Eduardo Landa
Staff Writer
All semester, students have been turning in assignments, waiting for teachers to grade them.
But now the roles are reversed, as teachers will have to wait for students to evaluate their work.
Every semester, students are emailed Perceived Teaching Effectiveness (PTE) forms that evaluate a professor’s performance. These forms are used by Cal State Dominguez Hills in order to learn which instructors are doing the most effective job, in the eyes of students, and which ones aren’t.
These forms help determine which teachers get promoted, reappointed, tenured and also helps with post-tenure review. They are part of an overall evaluation process.
The PTE forms are all emailed to students – one for each class in which they are enrolled.
The forms do not take long to fill out, as there are only 13 questions. The questions ask whether you agree with the statement they propose or not.
For example, one question asks if “the course content covered the stated objective.” Students are given the option to choose “strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree and not applicable.”
The three final questions require students to write an opinion on what the teacher has done well and what they can do better.
Many students treat these PTE form emails as spam and don’t even bother getting to them. What students don’t know is that a professor needs 75 percent of their students to answer these forms or else none will be read.
All of a student’s responses will be kept confidential, and they will not be available to your instructor until after final grades are turned in.
Deadlines for all forms are 11:59 p.m. Dec. 6.
If students have any questions, they can feel free to contact the IT Help Desk at (310) 243-2500 or the Office of Faculty Affairs at (310) 243-3766.
