How to deal with poor teaching evaluations on academic job market?

Everyone has a tough time the first several years of teaching. It takes several years for people to find their feet. We can't all be Richard Feynman right out of grad school.

Still, a search committee might note your poor scores. You can compensate in several ways:

  1. By remarking on this in your Statement of Teaching. I would try not to dismiss or shift blame, but tackle it head on. "In my first year of teaching, I received poor scores in Nuclear Physics 101. These mainly centered around X and Y. I have revised my syllabus to handle X and will dedicate more time to discussion around points Y. I have also changed how I handle Z, which should alleviate both problems, etc. etc. I have also decided to be less of a jerk."

  2. By delivering a stellar guest lecture when you're brought on campus for your interviews.

Note that #1 and #2 both involve practices (statement of teaching; guest lecture in a class) that not all universities and colleges follow. Generally the ones that care about teaching require them and the ones that don't don't.

For example, I teach at an R1 where undergraduate teaching is ... deprecated. We mainly care about your research and that's what we evaluate our candidates on.


I would see if you can find someone willing to write you a positive teaching recommendation letter.

In mathematics, applicants are typically expected to provide one or more such letters. Sometimes these read "So-and-so had difficulties in his/her first year, but responded markedly well to feedback and constructive criticism. H/she is now teaching the course a second time and is doing an excellent job: [here the letter writer gives a lot of detail....]"


Depending on where you apply, it may not be required to provide the teaching evaluations. For example, in the past, I have applied for a few jobs in Canada and other countries and it was not required. However, when I was invited for job interview, they asked me to give a 10 minutes course demonstration, so they could evaluate my teaching skills. I was required to do this for at least three different job interviews for professor positions. So I would say to provide the evaluations if they ask for them. Otherwise, you don't need to. If they ask for the evaluations, then you could always explain that it is a difficult course to teach. As a professor, I am aware that some courses are more difficult and I think that most professors should be aware of that and understand that.