It is the year 2013 isn’t it? I am encountering articles today that make me believe otherwise.

Racism: Georgia high school students organize first integrated prom. Thank goodness for the high school students for having the maturity what the adults should have done decades ago.

Homophobia: Student senate passes ‘Religious Funding Exemption Bill’ (which I think should be known as the “We are some hellacious hypocritical Christians” bill, but then, what do I know?)

Sexism: Groundbreaking Female Rocket Scientist Sure Could Cook. Man, I was worried about that! What if one day I woke up able to simultaneously solve 5 differential equations in my head, but I couldn’t cook for my significant other. What a tragedy that would be.

But yes, all of that still happens today. After my experience in the interview last week, I am saddened but unsurprised.

Dear dear dear Students,

Please see to it that your generation does a better job than mine. I’m sorry we screwed so many things up for you.

Regretfully,

Dr. Jinx

A few days later, and what have I learned?

1. You can know someone is being abusive, but it will still hurt.
2. When something like this happens in a job negotiation to a woman, there will always be at least one or two well-meaning friends to ask her if she tried negotiating. It was worth it to me realize that they meant well and to fight down my indignation.
3. Anxiety problems and abuse are not a good combination. It’s been tough these last several days.
4. That department chair and his protege were so out of line.
5. Yes, in 2013, there are still men who go on power trips trying to take advantage of women financially in professional contexts. Unbelieveable, but true.
6. I still need feminism. We still need feminism. Oh my gosh, do we ever need feminism.
7. I am fortunate in my friends.
8. I have friends who are knowledgable about academic hiring who are willing to take the time to talk to me, reassure me, and advise me.
9. I am still angry, and I expect to be for a while.
10. Fair or unfair, the tenure-track hire in the relationship has more negotiating power in these situations than the person who would actually be doing the non-tenure-track job.

In case you never saw it, or forgot about it, enjoy Jon Stewart on Teachers and Wall Street.

And one more for shared outrage with my feminist friends: Saudi Arabia lets women ride bicycles, but only for fun, not for transportation. This is not from the Onion. This is real news. Yes, in 2013!

Critical mass of women in academic science. They say critical mass is at the 15% level. When I used to talk about this with women friends doing the martial arts we talked about the 25-30% level. Who knows where we got that from. I’d like to see more research on this.

Another article on gender bias in teaching evaluations that also points to the fact that teaching evaluations often have little to do with what the students learn. Apparently personality of the instructor is the biggest influence on teaching evaluations. Ouch.

The chilly academic climate toward women. Road blocks, road blocks, everywhere.

The Torment of Teaching Evaluations; advice for getting better ones. What should you do if you don’t like your teaching evaluations? Ways to influence them without modifying real course content.

Gender bias in teaching evaluations of high school teachers. Some nice graphics showing the differences.

ETS weighs in.

My friend’s question about whether she is a good teacher got me off on a research binge. Her question arose from negative teaching evaluations; something that I think even the best teacher has to put up with.

Earlier in the semester another faculty member mentioned that students’ evaluations of teaching don’t correspond to their learning. That study shows that professor quality has an effect on student learning measured through their grades in subsequent courses. Student evaluations of teachers are heavily influenced by the grade the student expects to receive in the current (contemporaneous) course.

Inevitably, in freshman weed-out courses you will get worse teaching evaluations than for a small senior seminar.

This paper also shows that professors who do well at helping students with contemporaneous learning on average harm the students in subsequent (more advanced) classes. Whoops! Student evaluations are positively correlated with contemporaneous achievement and negatively correlated with follow-on achievement. Academic rank, experience teaching, whether or not you have a terminal degree are negatively correlated with performance in the current class and positively correlated with student performance in subsequent classes.

Perhaps my friend should embrace the painful teaching evaluations?

On the other hand, this worries me; my teaching evaluations are fairly good. Am I teaching to the test or am I promoting deep learning? I hope I am promoting deep learning, although I also think that exams should not come as a surprise to the students provided the student is doing what he/she is supposed to do. I will have to reflect on this in future semesters. I know that having taught broadly within the curriculum has influenced my teaching; when I know what expectations are in later courses, I make sure things get covered in earlier courses to promote the later learning.

I’ve taught differential equations three times, and I have consciously tried to make the course more difficult each time I’ve taught it.

Another complicating factor in evaluating student evaluations is that they aren’t gender-blind. Male students rate female professors more negatively than male professors. Female students tend to rate female professors more highly, but this doesn’t help if you are a female teaching in a predominantly male discipline (like upper-level math).

This got me thinking about my mathematical modeling course. The best semester I had with it was Spring of 2012. That class produced great work and awesome outcomes; I had a lot of fun with them, and they with me. The Fall of 2012 class was a real let down; there were a lot of weak students in the class, and I was too lenient early in the semester. This semester is going well and students are performing well, but there’s not that extra oomph I recall from Spring 2012.

I wonder what I’m doing different or not as well.

After reading the article, I started wondering if it is me. In Spring 2012, out of 18 students, I had 8 women in the class. In Fall 2012, I had 5 women of 17 students. This semester I have 4 women out of 34 students split into two women in each of two sections of 17 students. I think that is one of the major influences on the dynamic of the class. You need a certain critical mass of women in the class for the culture to change. I had it in Spring 2012, and I don’t have it now.