Assignment 4
Submit your completed assignment on the first day of finals week; no late work will be accepted. Please note that this assignment should be started at least two weeks prior to the due date.
The end of this semester draws near. Soon, you will be wrapping up your teaching, giving final exams, and posting grades. If you haven't done so already, you will also be offering your students a chance to complete course evaluations. But, these student evaluations are somewhat generic, not linked directly to your teaching/learning goals or your teaching strategies or techniques. Moreover, the results of these evaluations will not be returned to you until next semester. You need to learn about your students' perceptions of the course and of your teaching now while you can use their feedback to adjust how you will plan for your teaching for next semester.
In this assignment you are to ask your students to provide you with an evaluation of your teaching and their learning.
Details of the Assignment
Think about your course goals and your teaching goals this semester. (Maybe revisit the goals you identified in assignment #1.) Think about teaching techniques and strategies you tried and methods you employed to reach your students. With these in mind design a 2-4 question anonymous survey to administer to your students during your last class or lab. Make sure all the questions relate to your goals in some way. You needn't have a question for every goal. Decide on what topic(s) you most desire feedback and craft the questions to get appropriate comments.
Administer this anonymous student evaluation at the beginning of the last class meeting if at all possible. Explain to them that their feedback is valuable to you, that it will help you better address the needs of students the next time you teach the class. Ask students to take these questions seriously. Additionally, let them know that this exercise does not require their name, and will not be graded.
Collect the survey from every student. Read through the responses, taking time to make consider all comments and to make written notes as you read.
Format and Submission Guidelines
- List each question you designed for the survey with its associated teaching or learning goal.
- Describe the overall student feedback you received for each question. If there are multiple groups of feelings, acknowledge these. Note any outliers.
- Interpret the student feedback as their instructor. Discuss why you think they felt the way they did. Discuss what you walk away with as a teacher based on their feedback.
Discuss one point of feedback from any of the questions that you will focus on next semester as a place for work and change as you plan your teaching.
Submit your completed assignment via email to the workshop instructor, subject: "TA Workshop."
