Course Evaluation Review

For the purposes of this reflection and plan for improvement I am reviewing three course evaluations from the spring semester of 2015. The courses were taught for UNO through the Division of Continuing Studies and the Sociology/Anthropology department: SOC 2100 Social Problems, SOC 2800 Major Social Issues and SOC 4800 Disability and Society. All three are courses I have taught before. In the instance of SOC 4800 Disability and Society, the evaluation covers the second time I taught the course. SOC 2800 Major Social Issues I have taught in various forms about once a year since 2011, and SOC 2100 Social Problems I have taught every semester, including summer, since spring of 2008.

The course evaluations evaluate courses and instructors in ten areas of ‘competency’: learning, enthusiasm, organization, group interaction, individual rapport, breadth, assessment & evaluation, assignments, overall and course workload/difficulty (relative to other courses taken). These are all measured using Likert scales asking the student to strongly disagree, disagree, be neutral, agree, or strongly agree with a number of statements for each assessment area. The more and more strongly students agree with the statements the better the score and the higher the indicator of the quality of a course’s and/or instructor’s performance. A score of 5 in any category is the best possible score. Of course, one must also consider response rates of these so that an overall score for a course of 3.2 but with an evaluation response rate of 95% is maybe better than an overall score for a course of 4.8 but with an evaluation response rate of but one or two students out of 30-40. The evaluations include an eleventh section where the student provides some data related to their standing at the university, their level of interest in the course, and two open ended questions asking, “Which characteristics of this instructor or course have been most valuable to your learning experience?”, and alternately “Which characteristics of this instructor or course are most important for him/her to improve upon (particularly aspects not covered by the rating items)?”    

Across the three evaluations the scores for the course and the instructor are quite positive and, for the most part, follow similar patterns. In terms of the overall picture, all three courses score a 4; with SOC 4800 Disability and Society getting a slightly higher 4.04. 

Table 1: Course Evaluation Competency Scores for Michael Glennon, Spring 2015
	SOC 2100 Social Problems	SOC 2800 Major Social Issues	SOC 4800 Disability & Society
Learning	4.31	4.23	4.44
Enthusiasm	4.06	3.91	4.26
Organization	4.22	4.00	4.06
Group Interaction	4.58	4.23	4.48
Individual Rapport	4.02	4.03	4.35
Breadth	4.36	3.81	4.44
Assessment & Evaluation	4.04	3.88	4.25
Assignments	4.13	4.00	4.42
Overall	4.00	4.00	4.04

 

Thankfully, most students who evaluate me and my courses agree or strongly agree that I am competent in these areas. There are also some neutrals, and in every course evaluation one or two students who disagree or strongly disagree. So, in the main, my teaching ranges from competent to highly competent for most students, but there is consistently one or two students who have a negative experience or perspective. 

It is noteworthy but not surprising that my competency scores for SOC 4800 Disability and Society are higher than those for SOC 2100 Social Problems and in some areas much higher than SOC 2800 Major Social Issues; especially in areas like enthusiasm, rapport, breadth, assessment and assignment and so on. I made an experimental change in my Major Social Issues course here. You see, the last time I had taught this version of the course I had a number of students come to me during the semester with the feedback that the class discussions every week, at least given our topic and the additional work some of the discussion question required, was too burdensome for this level of course. So this time I decided to cut the number of class discussions in half. In one stroke the amount of student to student interaction was reduced by half. The number of opportunities for instructor to student(s) was also reduced and, since the students had some choice as to which discussion questions they would cover, the sense of breadth that the course had before was diminished. Thus, in testing to see of less would be more in this instance the result was that in some of these areas measured here less was less. From a subjective standpoint I personally missed the missing discussions and one student echoes this sentiment with the constructive feedback that “I wish this class offered weekly discussions. Although I like the "less is more approach," I feel like earning points in this class was difficult for me”. One other student also expressed anxiety over the ‘so few graded assignments’. All this is to say I think the SOC 2800 Major Social Issues competency scores would more closely resemble the scores for the other two courses had I left the original discussion structure more-or-less intact. 

That the competency scores for SOC 4800 are higher than those for SOC 2100 is, I think, because of the five workshops I make the students do throughout the course to help guide them through the process of writing a social scientific research proposal. In the workshops I am atypically active in the class discussion – because I am along with other students workshopping work in progress. That creates more rapport and a more positive sense of the relevance and edification offered by the assignments. The increased participation on my part probably translates or read as higher enthusiasm than what the SOC 2100 students see.

Overall the open ended comments are positive; most of the comments on areas for me or the course to improve say “nothing” or “perfect course”. A comment in the evaluation for SOC 2100 Social Problems states they wish the instructor was a bit more active in the class discussions. The only comment offering me areas for improvement in the SOC 4800 course on Disability and Society is peculiar. 

“The instructor was extremely unavailable, questions went unanswered as classmates scrambled to try to figure out what was happening via group emails. The class schedule was at times disorganized, class content could have been spaced out a bit more in order for us to always have things going on, it could also have been set to a slower pace as the Instructor piled on too much and too fast on certain moments of the semester, which lead to having completely vague weeks towards the end of the semester. Too much material was viewed over either little time or it was not organized appropriately. There are times when no one knows what is happening because class schedule does not match what we are working on. No announcements given to class in order to keep us updated with the course material. Not enough time to do assignments, at least not to the expected level of quality, (Personally i had no issues, but a lot of other students did as they shared their concerns via class emails) and i agree completely. Very big issue with communication as a whole in this class. (I'm sorry for being so honest, however, these are necessary improvements. Please don't take it personal).”

It is peculiar first for its length. A paragraph long entry in these fields is in my experience not common. It is peculiar also because it is not consistent with a) the results of the rest of the course evaluation and, b) my memory of the course. For example, I not only responded to emails in usually under 24 hours, but I invited and encouraged emails. I regularly checked and responded to an ‘Ask the Prof’ discussion forum. And I made real-time online interaction available by appointment. The course never deviated from the course schedule and the schedule had us cover one chapter of the book every week, except the first week was all about orientation and syllabus and some weeks, listed in the course schedule, were workshops which involved a writing assignment. Instructions for these were posted 30 days or more in advance of due-dates. I also posted announcements (which were also emailed to the class) after every workshop and an instructor blog offering group feedback on discussions after every chapter discussion. 

I do not doubt that this and one other student had a negative experience with the course. But the comment bewilders me on a number of levels but mainly because I do not understand, if these were issues that the student had or perceived, why wait until the end of the course and the course evaluation to bring them to my attention? Why not contact me during the semester when I can make concrete efforts to help their specific concerns? Were they worried I would ‘take it personal’? Why? And why does the student begin from a position that they cannot trust me with their feedback? Thus, with this kind of comment, it is difficult for me to say if it fairly gauges me or not? In some aspects it is not fair. I was available and invited inquiry. It is not fair to expect me to know of a problem if the person with the problem does not reach out and communicate their concerns. In other aspects it may be fair. Maybe there were these emails behind the scenes and maybe there are areas where I can improve the course with a ‘less is more’ approach…(but then we see where that got me with SOC 2800).  

As far as I’m concerned none of my scores were really lower than desirable. I prefer everything to be a 4 or higher, though. And, on top of that, even if my scores were all 5.00, courses are always works in progress and there is always something to try out or tinker with or improve upon. So my bulleted plan is as follows:

·         SOC 2100 Social Problems: See what happens when I participate one or more times to the weekly topical class discussions

·         SOC 2800 Major Social Issues: The weekly discussions should remain the backbone of the course. Go back to weekly discussion format.

·         SOC 4800: Actually, this improvement applies to all my courses. Incorporate a short statement somewhere students will read it on how I take student concerns and feedback seriously and how if they are having questions, concerns or difficulties or are not understanding something or feel disoriented or overwhelmed that they should not hesitate to contact me via email with those concerns, because I would much rather take immediate concrete steps to improve their capacity to learn in my course than to read about them after the fact in a course evaluation when there is nothing I can do any more to help them. The wording on that will require careful attention, but the wording must be there as students like the one who left this peculiar comment need to know that their instructors are not their enemies but rather reflected professionals who want to teach.