At Temple U., as at most colleges, we have long distributed course evaluations to students at the end of the semester. These evaluations include general questions about the quality of the instructor, the value of the course, the workload in the course and include opportunities for students to provide general comments. There are two glaring difficulties with these evaluations. Possibly due to Temple’s size, the results are not presented back to the faculty members until after the start of the spring semester. This makes it difficult to make adjustments in time for the spring semester based on fall results. More recently, a new difficulty has arisen. The university evaluations are performed on the web, and the response rate has dropped greatly.
For some time now, I have been giving my students my own evaluation, with questions that are much more specific than those on the university forms. I ask them about the course requirements and the weights that they think should be assigned to each requirement. I ask about the use of Excel in the classroom. I allow my students to use either POM for Windows, Excel OM, or both for homework and exams, and I ask them if I should continue to do so or require only one of the 2 packages. I ask about the value of preparing their presentations for my class, the value of actually presenting and the value of listening to classmates’ presentations.
Of course, I also ask about the use of MyOMLab in the class. Once again this fall, the students have overwhelmingly endorsed MyOMLab. 100% of students who responded to my survey agreed that MyOMLab should continue to be used for homework and quizzes. And 84% wrote that I should continue to use MyOMLab for the exams. These results are very consistent with surveys from previous years.
I like having my own survey with specific feedback and receiving the feedback in time to prepare for the next semester. Do you agree?