Hello everyone - I've been following this thread with interest, as my university explicitly requires instructors to leave the classroom while students complete course evaluations!



Dave's suggestion of spelling out to students how class activities and materials meet course objectives is a great one, particularly if we do this throughout the term, not just on the last day. A colleague has been encouraging me to do this more, and I'm getting a little better at it. When we are about to begin a new unit, occasionally I remember to pull up the syllabus and say: buckle up – we're about to accomplish what that second bullet point talks about. When I distribute guidelines for assignments, I'm incorporating it in my routine to put at the top: this assignment relates to course objectives X, Y, and Z. And at the conclusion of an activity in class, I can say "now you know how to do X, and earlier you didn't" - this is the part that I tend to forget to do, but, as my colleague has pointed out, undergrads are often unsure of their competence and may doubt that they have managed to learn what they were supposed to, so it can be helpful to come right out and point out their accomplishments.



If students feel that course objectives have not been met and you manage to change their minds about that on the last day of the term, that might make the evaluations look better, but surely learning itself would improve if you can change student perceptions earlier in the term!



And to Damien's original question, I can't help wondering whether training students to give better feedback can really work. Even if it can, you have to do it again every year, right? Isn't it more likely that we can intervene more effectively on our side of the evaluations, in two ways:

• apply everything we know about survey design as we articulate questions for course evaluations

• train administrators to interpret evaluations better! Does your university compare students' ratings of courses across sections, instructors, or semesters? For example, when assessing you as an instructor, do administrators take into consideration whether your evaluation scores are above or below the average for your university? All of that is statistically untenable according to research I've skimmed.



Mai

-- 

Mai Kuha

Department of English

Ball State University

Muncie, Indiana, USA



On 2/1/19, 4:47 AM, "Teaching Linguistics on behalf of Dave Sayers" <[log in to unmask] on behalf of [log in to unmask]> was all:



    Is it possible for them to do it on their phones? If not, are you able to bring along 

    university-issue laptops/tablets? If either of those are possible then they could 

    still complete it there and then. You simply end the final class early and say that 

    we'll spend the last 20-30 mins completing the feedback online - whilst you go 

    through your ingratiating slides :)

    

    Dave

    

    -- 

    Dr. Dave Sayers, ORCID no. 0000-0003-1124-7132

    Senior Lecturer, Dept Language & Communication Studies, University of Jyväskylä, 

    Finland | ...

    

    On 01/02/2019 11:32, Damien Hall wrote:

    > Thanks for that, Dave. It sounds a great idea! Subtle, too. Unfortunately, our teaching feedback is online, so the students can do it at their convenience and there's no physical opportunity to indoctrinate them :-) The system may be under review, but for the moment it's what we've got. So any other advice about them giving feedback would be welcome, if people have it.

    > 

    > Damien

    > 

    > --

    > 

    > Damien Hall

    > (French) Linguistics

    > Newcastle University, UK

    > 

    > 

    





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