Evidence of Teaching Excellence and Student Learning
Formal End-Of-Semester Student Evaluations
See Appendix E for a copy of the formal end-of-semester questionnaire.
Table 1: Student Evaluation Results1
|
Semester |
Section 001 |
Section 002 |
Department Average2 |
|
Fall 2001 |
4.328 |
4.2594 |
4.179 |
|
Fall 2002 |
4.083 |
4.071 |
4.082 |
|
Spring 2003 |
4.050 |
4.193 |
4.010 |
|
Fall 2003 |
4.583 |
4.250 |
3.823 |
|
Fall 2004 |
4.500 |
n.a. |
|
|
Spring 2005 |
4.100 |
4.375 |
|
|
Fall 2005 |
4.000 |
4.571 |
3.940 |
1note: these numbers are fractal medians, based on one question from the student evaluation instrument.
2note: the department average includes the average of all courses taught that semester. In each semester presented here, I am the only instructor of ECO336.
Mid-Term Questionnaires
I regularly distribute mid-term questionnaires to my students in order to get confidential written feedback during the course of the semester. For some examples of student feedback from this questionnaire administered during the fall of 2005, see Appendix D. See Appendix E for the mid-term questionnaire.
Other Sources of Evaluation on Behalf of Students
Additionally, I occasionally look at the various Internet sources at which students freely discuss their professors. While one must take these comments with a grain of salt (more so than other avenues students use to evaluate their professors, such as SEIs), one can still gather hints of trends and general disgruntled-ness from which one can learn. For selected comments from RateMyProfessors.com see Appendix D.
Responses to Student Evaluations and Comments
While my ECO336 students very much love the opportunity for discussion that I regularly build into the class one day per week, they were frustrated by the lack of structure provided by student presentations. In response, I continued to have student presentations, but made sure that I provided handouts with the main points of the day’s topics.
At one point, I heard from students that my lectures are disorganized. I think this is in part a matter of my stream-of-thought style of lecturing that naturally benefits students who come to class prepared. In an attempt to become more organized and provide students with more organization, I give them a week-by-week schedule telling them the topics that will be covered that week, what reading is necessary, and what will be due. See Appendix B for an example of the course timeline.