anonymous course evaluation forms

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College Professors Chatboard

anonymous course evaluation forms

by anon. adjunct

May 11, 2010

I am taking a college course taught by an adjunct and I teach a course as an adjunct at a different college. I was wondering what thoughts you all have about those end-of- semester course evaluation forms that are filled out anonymously and the instructor gets the forms months later after they have been compiled by department heads. As a teacher myself, I woudl much prefer that students tell me personally, in a timely manner, if they want something from the course that they are not getting, rather than write something critical at the end of the course when it is too late form me to address the concerns. The exception would be if the instructor is a jerk or was obviously sluffing off, but if the teacher is neither of those, why not talk to the teacher directly, man to man, or whatever the case may be. Your thoughts, please.

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ap You can remedy that very easily by giving your students a form to fill out. You can ask as many questions as you would like and you can make it as personal or anonymous as you'd like. Just like everything else, the college needs a paper trail just in case they have to get rid of an ineffective instructor.

On 5/11/10, anon. adjunct wrote: &...See More

May 11, 2010

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bernoulli You are talking about an instructional assessment survey. They don't really tell how much learning is taking place. I get very high ratings from my students, but don't know if they really learned anything. Note that I also give outcomes assessment surveys in some classes as well as a few other types of surveys. I always ask them to write comments o...See MoreYou are talking about an instructional assessment survey. They don't really tell how much learning is taking place. I get very high ratings from my students, but don't know if they really learned anything. Note that I also give outcomes assessment surveys in some classes as well as a few other types of surveys. I always ask them to write comments on the back about what they liked and didn't like. That feedback has been the most helpful.

Try this: Create a "tools assessment survey" where you ask the students to evaluate the effectiveness of the various learning tools in the course: homework, quizzes, tests, textbook, Project instruction, PowerPoint presentations, handouts, software, on-line resources, syllabus, etc. I have a list of about 20 tools. They can also write a response about how to improve the tools. Anyway, I found the responses to this survey to be very helpful in improving the course and the students don't feel like they are criticizing the instructor in a way that will put them at risk.

On 5/11/10, ap wrote: > You can remedy that very easily by giving your students a > form to fill out. You can ask as many questions as you would > like and you can make it as personal or anonymous as you'd > like. > Just like everything else, the college needs a paper trail > just in case they have to get rid of an ineffective > instructor. > > > > On 5/11/10, anon. adjunct wrote: >> I am taking a college course taught by an adjunct and I >> teach a course as an adjunct at a different college. I was >> wondering what thoughts you all have about those end-of- >> semester course evaluation forms that are filled out >> anonymously and the instructor gets the forms months later >> after they have been compiled by department heads. As a >> teacher myself, I woudl much prefer that students tell me >> personally, in a timely manner, if they want something from >> the course that they are not getting, rather than write >> something critical at the end of the course when it is too >> late form me to address the concerns. The exception would >> be if the instructor is a jerk or was obviously sluffing >> off, but if the teacher is neither of those, why not talk >> to the teacher directly, man to man, or whatever the case >> may be. Your thoughts, please.

May 12, 2010

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anonadjunct Thanks, bernoulli, Where I teach, the anonymous surveys are created by the admin and the instructor has to have a student distribute and collect them while the instructor is out of the room. Then the student delivers them to the appropriate office. The instructor sees them much later. I do like your idea of surveying the students myself, maybe at t...See MoreThanks, bernoulli, Where I teach, the anonymous surveys are created by the admin and the instructor has to have a student distribute and collect them while the instructor is out of the room. Then the student delivers them to the appropriate office. The instructor sees them much later. I do like your idea of surveying the students myself, maybe at the beginning of the semester asking them to check their preferred instructional modes, and then requesting some formal feedback through a survey form mid-semester. With the end-of year evaluations that you don't see until later, the utility is limited because it is too late for you to address the students concerns. during the semester, I always ask the students to talk to me, meet with me, ask me questions, help me to help them, etc. I consider myself approachable. Now in the grad course that I was taking, it appeared that the instructor took little if any time to prepare, repeatedly canceled class, rarely kept us for anything approaching the full class time, showed us videos that did not relate to the content area, was not able to answer a basic, no-brainer question I asked about the content area, could not produce a rubric for the final project when asked. Although I believe in giving constructive criticism to a person's face, rather than filling out anonymous forms or complaining to the person's superiors behind their backs, I really felt doubtful about how he would respond if I told him directly about my perceptions. I paid for this course with my own money and am really trying to improve my expertise in this area to improve my job skills. I learned little from the course, except what i found out from my own research. I resented the way he seemed to be "phoning it it," and stressed over how I would fill out the course evaluation form. When the time came, the instructor handed them out and collected them himself, rather than have a student do it. I resolved my dilemma by trying to write honest, but constructively phrased criticism,focusing on the instructional aspects rather than the teacher himelf, such as "I would have preferred if the videos we watched had related to the subject area." I just couldn't bring myself to sugarcoat the truth. Since the students were handing the forms directly to the instructor, and the class was quite small, I handed him my form and told him I felt uncomfortable with the forms and I would rather address my concerns directly to him, and if he wanted to pitch it after reading it that was fine with me.(Since he had the form in his hand I had no control over what he did with it anyway.) He stuck it in the envelope but I don't know what he did with it after that. I would like to avoid this instructor in the future but he teaches another course that I need to take, and at this time no one else teaches it. It just felt very strange being in the position of simultaneously being the subject of these student evaluations and also filling out one myself to evaluate someone else.

On 5/12/10, bernoulli wrote: > You are talking about an instructional assessment survey. They > don't really tell how much learning is taking place. I get very > high ratings from my students, but don't know if they really > learned anything. Note that I also give outcomes assessment > surveys in some classes as well as a few other types of surveys. I > always ask them to write comments on the back about what they > liked and didn't like. That feedback has been the most helpful. > > Try this: Create a "tools assessment survey" where you ask the > students to evaluate the effectiveness of the various learning > tools in the course: homework, quizzes, tests, textbook, Project > instruction, PowerPoint presentations, handouts, software, on-line > resources, syllabus, etc. I have a list of about 20 tools. They > can also write a response about how to improve the tools. Anyway, > I found the responses to this survey to be very helpful in > improving the course and the students don't feel like they are > criticizing the instructor in a way that will put them at risk. > > > > > On 5/11/10, ap wrote: >> You can remedy that very easily by giving your students a >> form to fill out. You can ask as many questions as you would >> like and you can make it as personal or anonymous as you'd >> like. >> Just like everything else, the college needs a paper trail >> just in case they have to get rid of an ineffective >> instructor. >> >> >> >> On 5/11/10, anon. adjunct wrote: >>> I am taking a college course taught by an adjunct and I >>> teach a course as an adjunct at a different college. I was >>> wondering what thoughts you all have about those end-of- >>> semester course evaluation forms that are filled out >>> anonymously and the instructor gets the forms months later >>> after they have been compiled by department heads. As a >>> teacher myself, I woudl much prefer that students tell me >>> personally, in a timely manner, if they want something from >>> the course that they are not getting, rather than write >>> something critical at the end of the course when it is too >>> late form me to address the concerns. The exception would >>> be if the instructor is a jerk or was obviously sluffing >>> off, but if the teacher is neither of those, why not talk >>> to the teacher directly, man to man, or whatever the case >>> may be. Your thoughts, please.

May 16, 2010

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ProfessorMan I've done mid-session/trimester/semester evals of my own in the past. I find the students are less open about their concerns, but still give valuable feedback.

One thing I did was take critical questions out of our university's survey such as the overall score the students give to the professor (ours is on a 4-point scale). Consistently, t...See More

May 26, 2010

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