Stick a Toothpick into your Class this Fall!

Most teachers are required to have students do a course evaluation. Teachers are evaluated for enthusiasm, preparedness, ability to explain difficult material clearly and other such things. Although I welcomed the opportunity to evaluate my teachers when I was a student the problem I had with them was the timing — they were done at the end of the semester?! That always struck me as odd because nothing could be done to improve the class while we were taking it by assessing it at the end. During all my years as student I cannot recall a teacher that took the time to find out whether or not we were satisfied with the class while we were taking it. In doing so, the teachers would have known (providing they cared) whether or not the course was meeting mine and their expectations so that changes could be made in the event that they were not.

Not wanting to repeat the mistakes of teachers past, I now do and recommend that other educators, do a mid-semester course evaluation. I think it is a great way to make corrections while the course is being taught to better facilitate student learning. This seemingly simple idea, which is not unlike putting a toothpick in a cake to see if it is done, has proven to be a profound learning experience for me and the students. Not only do I learn whether or not my students are satisfied with the course, I get feedback from them on how to improve the course while I am teaching it.

The procedure is a simple one. I am going to guess that most of you do an end-of-semester course evaluation. All you need to do is take that same assessment tool and administer it at the mid-point of the term. Once I obtain the results, I place them on a transparency so that I can share the results with the students in class. I then go through the results item by item at the beginning of class so that the students can see how they evaluated me and the course. For those items that I scored lowest on, I have the students take out a sheet of paper and anonymously write down what they think I can do to improve. I will tell you that the students have provided me with excellent feedback that has truly helped me to make steady improvement in my teaching over the years. Plus, it helps me to understand how they interpret the items. I then take their feedback, summarize it, and report back to them at the start of the next class on what I plan to do to improve the course before the end of the semester. I then administer the end of the semester evaluation, as usual, to determine if the course has been improved, which is usually the case.

In sum, looking back on my many years as a student, I am amazed that there was not a single teacher who did a course evaluation at the middle of the semester. I could speculate all day as to the reason why such was the case. My suspicion is that each new generation of faculty accepts far too many of the “accepted practices” of those before them without asking, “Why did my teachers teach me the way they did and how can I do better?” I choose to question everything — no stone is left unturned in my quest to better educate those who enroll in my classes. I hope you feel the same.