The South Park version of me

Student Evaluations

Student Evaluations are just plain weird, as the responses from my two classes clearly demonstrate. Here's some background: I had two sections of Western Civilization 1, which covers the time period from 4,000 BC to 1715 AD. Each class started with 23 students. Each class lost at least 50% of its original occupants , although many dropped the first week. Both classes had identical quizzes, discussion questions, exams, syllabi, etc... One class ended the semester with 6 students, while the other ended the semester with 13 students. I received four Student Evaluations from the smaller class, and three from the larger.

The actual feedback I received varied radically between the two classes. Any guesses which class thought I did a good job?

If you guessed the class with a higher student retention rate, you'd be wrong...

Class A (the smaller one), seemed to think that I should do a better job relating the course materials to real life, only giving me a 3.5/5.0 for that attribute. They also wanted more explicit "explanations, guidance, and feedback to help me to understand the course concepts", although they gave me a 3.5/5.0 on that, too. Class A's main complaint was the work load - they thought it was too much for working adults.

The three respondents from Class B were generally unhappy. They thought that I didn't adequately explain what they would learn (2.3/5), that I didn't provide enough feedback and explanations (2.5/5.0), and that I didn;t relate the subject matter to life (2.0/5.0). Class B also thought the workload too heavy, the quizzes too difficult, and that the requirement to deal with material as a class according to the syllabus was too restrictive.

I must confess that some of the evaluation points have me at a loss, particularly since I have two different data sets that don't seem to agree with each other. The issue with relating subject matter to modern life is one I was expecting. Given the current political climate, I find that relating the course to modern life is like walking a tight rope. How far can you go in comparing the war in Iraq to the Crusades, the Inquisition to Abu Ghraib, or the end of the Roman Republic to modern America before you find yourself in hot water for offending a student? I think this is just something I'll have to learn over the course of time.

But what of the complaints about the course load? This was a ten week course, that covers fifteen weeks of material? The course design was not determined by me - it's standard across all of our Western Civ classes, which ensures that everyone covers the same material. The amount of work and the expectations are clearly spelled out in the Syllabus, Course Schedule, and the Discussion and Essay Rubrics. How is it possible that students read those documents and didn't realize how much work was involved?

I also received two other complaints from Class B that demonstrate either laziness, misunderstanding of online learning, or a misunderstanding of why the students were expected to master certain concepts:

1. "There are very few traditional courses that require you to attend on the weekends, this regulation is a major factor in which I will attempt to avoid xxx online courses. I feel that if I believe that I am ready to take the quizz for that week I should be able to take it, I do not believe that the quizzes should be opened before the week in which they are covered."

   - So this student obviously believes that online classes should just be correspondence courses that are done as you feel like it, and that nothing should require work on the weekend. The quiz dates were selled out in the Course Schedule, so if this student didn't like the weekend requirement, why stay in the class? Why not ask to take the quizzes early? Why wait until after the class is over to mention this issue?

2. "This course should not be so detailed it didn't take 6 to 8 weeks for history to be created and no one should be expected to learn the subject matter in such a detailed fashion in such a short time frame."

   - Again the time frame/work load issue. After looking at the Syllabus did this student really think we would be skimming items, or that would wouldn't look at details? This is a survey course, but some things must be looked at in a at least a modicum of detail - like how technological and agricultural change affected the economic and social development of Europe, or how/why Europeans were able to successfully compete and establish colonies elsewhere in the world, or the Greco-Roman roots of European and American systems of government, philosophy, science, and religion?

So what am I taking away from this other than a sense that in many cases, students using the evaluations to complain about thing they don't like? I can't assume that my students will actually read and understand the schedule, syllabus, or workload involved in class, which means adding some of that material in early emails and announcements. I also need to make a special effort to connect the material to the real world - in a careful manner to avoid offending the delicate sensibilities of the students. Maybe that will create a greater sense of engagement in the classes.

Next: Textbooks and primary sources

Notes on the end of the semester

My first semester of teaching is finally at an end. I've graded and returned all of the discussion questions, exams, and research assignments, and submitted final grades. The journey from February to May as a new (online) instructor of HIS 101 "Western Civilization I" was quite instructive - I saw many of the issues and potentials of both Community Colleges and online learning. This term's experiences have given me cause for alarm and dismay, but then I'm new at this. After all, other than teaching short end-user courses, this is my first experience teaching. No TA jobs for me - I went whole hog.

Downs

1. Poor writing - With a few exceptions, the quality of student writing was atrocious. I saw everything from spelling errors and basic grammatical issues, to structural issues in essays. Most students did not understand the concepts of writing even a "standard" collegiate level essay, so I rarely read a writing assignment with an introduction or conclusion, much less well-developed arguments. As the semester progressed, the amount of detail in the essays actually went down.
2. Plagiarism - I had two clear cases of plagiarism this semester. Both of these were quite obvious based on the students' normal quality of writing. I also used Eve 2.5 and some Google searches to verify my suspicions. In one case the student copied three or four sentences in his first paragraph of the Midterm from the first site that came up in a Google search for "Roman Constitution". The other student simply copied an entire essay from the third website that came up in a Google search on "Plato". In addition to the cases of blatant plagiarism, many students simply did not understand how (or why) to do proper citations. The entire concept of providing citations to give credit to other authors' work, and allow colleagues to review their sources, seemed to confuse them. Because I remember doing this in high school, it seems that some students just aren't getting adequate preparation in English Composition before they get to college.
3. Compressed class schedule - My classes only had 10 weeks to cover an entire 15 weeks worth of material. This was tough on both me and the students, especially because the students appeared to expect a blow-off class. I think this was a major factor in the significant number of withdrawals I saw over the course of the semester.

Ups

1. Student variety - I had a huge variety of types of students. My classes had students ranging from new 19 year-old Freshmen to 50+ year-old grandparents. The breadth of experience added some new levels of complexity to discussion sessions. The different perspectives were quite handy, although not as much as in a U.S. History II class.
2. Real progress in student writing and thinking skills - two students that just didn't get it at the beginning showed real improvement over the course of the semester. They weren't writing brilliant essays by any means, but they were getting better. This almost made up for the three or four bright students that faded in the last two weeks of class.
3. Learning opportunities - both of my classes taught me some important things about how to deal with challenging student and pedagogical issues. They also showed me the areas I need to focus on for improvement. The big one is definitely in the area of relating the content to modern life. Unfortunately this represents a delicate balance. How do you compare the Crusades to the modern Middle East without stepping on student toes? How far can you go in discussing the beginning of the African slave trade, and it's relations to the modern world? I think this is one of those areas that I'll struggle with for awhile.

Tomorrow: Student Evaluations, problems with textbooks, and the importance of primary sources...

What kind of postmodernist are you?

You are a Theory Slut. The true elite of the
postmodernists, you collect avant-garde
Indonesian hiphop compilations and eat journal
articles for breakfast. You positively live
for theory. It really doesn't matter what
kind, as long as the words are big and the
paragraph breaks few and far between.


What kind of postmodernist are you!?
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Fostering Dissent

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My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

Sonnet 130—My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress, when she walks,...