OP: Students should take FCQ’s more serious, benefits teacher and student

4 December 2018

Joy Webb

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    After an entire semester in a course with a certain professor, a student can get a feel for the amount of content they have learned, and how well a professor taught a specific course. Faculty Course Questionnaires are not taken as seriously as they should be by students.

    Often times, I hear students in my courses complain about their professors, or rave about how wonderful their instructor was. FCQs are a chance for students to not only voice their opinions and have a say in their education, but it’s also a chance for professors to get constructive feedback from students.  

    Based on FCQs, professors can determine what they are doing right,what they are doing wrong, what they could be doing better, what is working and what isn’t working with their instructing. This is the only way they can correct their teaching for semesters to come.

    What many students don’t know is that FCQ’s are posted online for students and faculty to see after they are filled out for the future student’s knowledge. According to CU News Daily Camera, a new study — the first of its kind — finds that college students lie on anonymous teacher evaluations, which are partly used to determine whether instructors should be re-hired and if professors should earn tenure.

    Students should consider FCQ’s as important as voting; it is their right to have a voice and a say in what their education should look like. Their feedback from this questionnaire, which takes at most fifteen minutes to complete, is taken into consideration when teachers decide their type of instruction, and these questions also determine whether a teacher is doing their job or not.

    Also according to the article by the Daily Camera, written by a University of Northern Iowa marketing professor, Dennis Clayson, and a fellow marketing professor at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, Debra Haley, surveyed nearly 240 students at their schools. About one-third of those surveyed said they lied on the anonymous evaluations. And 56 percent responded that they know other students who have lied on the evaluations, which colleges typically circulate at the end of semesters.

    During this semester, when you have to do FCQs, take an extra minute or two to answer the questions to the best of your ability, and help not only yourself, but also all of the professors here at UCCS improve our education.