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Subject |
E-Cafe Message from Vice Chancellor Academic
Affairs |
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From |
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Date |
Friday, February 27, 2009
8:29 am |
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To |
'HawCC
Faculty' <hawccfac-l@hawaii.edu> ,
hawccfac-lecturers-1@hawaii.edu |
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Cc |
rfreitas@hawaii.edu ,
'Noreen Yamane' <noreeny@hawaii.edu> , 'Joni Onishi'
<jonishi@hawaii.edu> , 'Sara Narimatsu'
<saran@hawaii.edu> , sanders@hawaii.edu , 'Barbara Arthurs'
<arthurs@hawaii.edu> , 'Shawn Flood'
<sgflood@hawaii.edu> |
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A Message to Faculty on
e-Café & Dossier Preparation : Working together with your
Academic Senate Executive Committee, the Instructional Services Office is
committed to doing as much as possible to improve the return rate for the
e-Café system. We all understand that a small sample size can
exaggerate the extremes of student feedback and may exaggerate the opinion of
a discontented student or students when a more complete return rate could
correct a possibly distorted image. It is our hope to stimulate
the majority of students to recognize that the responsibilities of belonging
to a learning community include constructive responses to the professor via whatever
evaluation system may be employed. When I say “…our hope…” I am
referring to your Executive Committee, my office and you as a faculty member,
as well. We all bear the responsibility of encouraging our students to
participate in the flow of constructive communication in the learning
communities we create in each of our classrooms and virtual learning
environments including the use of e-Café. As we approach another
season for eliciting summative student feedback we need to reflect on the
importance of communicating to our students that we do use and value these
data for self reflection and continuing growth in our professional
practice. Sometimes students get distracted by the idea that they are
communicating with the faculty members’ supervisors when in fact the first
and most important message delivered by e-Café is the communication with the
faculty member. Although e-Café results are often used as part of the
contract renewal, tenure and promotion dossiers as one possible source of
student feedback, the review of e-Café results by colleagues on your division
personnel committees and by supervisors reflects our interest in your
professional growth. As a supervisor I am
interested in sharing your joy concerning the praise you may receive from
your students and in your reflections on ways of addressing constructive
criticism to assure continued growth as a teacher and a scholar. If the
criticism is expressed in direct student comments to the open ended questions
or perhaps is collectively expressed as repeated lower-than-average
satisfaction levels to specific items on the survey, I hope to see a
straightforward and candid response. Responding to student critiques in
this manner can be a prelude to professional growth and maturation. I do not give the same
value to all student criticism of the work we do, and so I recognize that not
all criticism may be constructive or deserved. However, we need to
respond thoughtfully to all criticism and I am interested in following your
reasoned interpretation/analysis of both the praise and the criticism you may
receive from your students. I think we all realize that disregarding
the feedback of students is perilous and can lead quickly to cynicism among
our students and hostility from the larger community that we serve. Let us all rededicate
ourselves to encouraging our students to participate in the process by
reassuring them that we read every word and review all statistical
feedback. I can assure you and them that I care about these lines of
communication for our learning
communities. Douglas
Dykstra Vice
Chancellor for Academic Affairs |