Evaluating Your Students and Yourself

Several of my TAs have done this and I think it is great. It is nice to know that they care about the opinions of the students. They couldn’t always make changes, but after they talked to the class about it, we understood the rationale for why particular activities and assignments were part of the class.

 TA:
Most departments require you to distribute to your students the standard university evaluation form prepared by EAP during the last few meeting of the quarter. While the comments you receive at that time are extremely helpful, they come a little too late for you to make any improvements in your current course.

Mid-quarter evaluation forms, with questions prepared by you, can give you ideas on how to better reach your students. Keep in mind that a question such as, “Evaluate the overall effectiveness of the section”, while important at the final evaluations, is not particularly useful in a mid-quarter form. You will get better results with questions that are specific, practical, and non-threatening, such as:

• Which activity in section do you find most useful?
• Can I do anything else to help you better understand the material?

Professor:

Because our quarters are so short, there is a lot of resistance to formal mid-quarter evaluations. The reasoning is that by the time you get the results back, the quarter is already over. However, this should not deter you from asking students to complete anonymous informal evaluations one or two times during the quarter. On a sheet of paper, students can answer the following three questions:

• What is working?
• What is not working?
• If you were teaching, what would you do differently?

After reading the results and digesting them (some of the responses may not be easy on the ego to read), have a discussion with your students about adjustments you will or will not be making based on their feedback. Doing the mid-quarter evaluations, and then discussing the results with them, sends the message that you care about their learning.