Reference letters for teaching positions - MathOverflow

Reference letters for teaching positions

2011-07-09T03:03:16Z

I've been told that when applying for a teaching position, your reference letters can be written by anyone who is familiar with your teaching capabilities in detail. I feel that this primarily just means students, but I wonder if there's some unspoken rule that reference letters should come from people in positions of authority, e.g. professors for whom I've served as TA, administrative staff in the math department, etc. In reality, it's the students who know my teaching capabilities in detail, and perhaps to a lesser degree my friends, whereas professors and administrators have no direct knowledge my teaching abilities whatsoever, and might only have heard things here or there from students, or have read my student evaluations and seen the scores.

So should reference letters predominantly come from authority figures, or is it okay to have them all come from students?

Answer by Kevin O'Bryant for Reference letters for teaching positions

2011-07-09T04:00:29Z

I wouldn't mind reading a letter from a student, but if the only letter covering teaching were from a student, it would definitely raise eyebrows.

It will also give someone on the committee an easy way to strongly object to you, and for most positions that's enough to bring an end to your hopes.

On a more philosophical note, your students are surely most familiar with your teaching, but they are not the best qualified to judge it. A student is likely unable to assess the depth of your knowledge, the ease of your course, or how you deal with problem students and complaints. All of these will be of supreme importance to the department looking to hire.

Answer by Joe Silverman for Reference letters for teaching positions

2011-07-09T11:53:59Z

IMO, The best teaching letters come from senior faculty members who have supervised you as a teacher and have sat in on several of your classes to observe your teaching. At many schools, it is standard procedure for this to happen. The letter should also discuss student evaluations, including numerical scores and some positive comments made by students on their evaluations. If this doesn't happen automatically at your school, then you should ask a faculty member to visit your class. This could be your advisor, or the faculty member in charge of the course you're teaching, or someone else on the faculty who you feel comfortable approaching. I would be very skeptical, for a variety of reasons, of an application whose only teaching letter(s) are from undergraduate(s). Indeed, any class is likely to contain at least a few students who are enthusiastic about the teacher, and a few who have a very negative opinion, so a couple of positive letters from handpicked student don't mean that much.

Answer by Deane Yang for Reference letters for teaching positions

2011-07-09T12:51:18Z

I agree with the previous answers but would put it more strongly. Your teaching letters should be only from people who not only know something about your teaching skills but who are experienced teachers themselves. A letter from a student is not appropriate. What is appropriate is to provide statistical data and maybe some comments (that are consistent with the statistical data) from teaching evaluations performed by the school or department.

Answer by Ben Webster for Reference letters for teaching positions

2011-07-11T21:45:28Z

Maybe a slightly different way to say what everyone else has is this: a letter from a student would not be seen as a letter of recommendation. Of course, it might literally be a letter which recommends you, but it simply wouldn't be seen as one. If you actually have a student who you think will write you a good letter, that would probably be nice supplementary material for your application, but it shouldn't be included in the list of letters on, say, mathjobs.

Answer by Andrew for Reference letters for teaching positions

2011-07-12T00:42:21Z

This is a slightly different response as most people are assuming you are intending to teach at the university level. I respond only for informational purposes for those teaching not at the university level.

As an undergraduate, I took an "advanced" math course with a Ph.D graduate student as the teacher. After finishing his degree, he ended up seeking prep school and community college positions out of interest to teach small groups of students. Not only did these schools ask for "authoritative" recommendations, but a number also asked for multiple student recommendations.

Admittedly, I was asked to write one -- I do not think I really had the perspective then, nor now, to write something. But it seems these less than university positions desire that additional information.