May 19, 2024Student Eval BloggingI just got back my student evaluations for the Spring (which is a record turnaround) and, as usual, they're fine. Still, a few observations: 1) Students often complain that there aren't enough tests/assignments in a class. While it is true that on a given assignment one might do unusually poorly (or unusally well), I would point out that, on balance, the number of assignments and exams is irrelevant. "A" students tend to do "A" work regardless of the number of units for measurement and "D" students tend to do "D" work. 2) Some student comments vex me: in a class this term in which a great deal of class participation took place, and where it was clear I was willing to deviate from my prepared notes if the students wanted to discuss an issue (obvious, because it happened on a weekly, if not classly, basis) I get the comment that I need to do more to encourage lively debate and discussion in class. This kind of comment always floors me because it makes me wonder if the student in question was in the same class as me, and, more importantly, since I actively encourage class participation my response to the comment is a question: if you wanted to talk and debate, why didn't you? This also reminds me of comments that my former colleague, James Joyner, used to note: which was that he would get comments that he didn't turn the grades back to them fast enough in a course which he would always have their grades on the internet within hours of the time they took the test. 3) It is invariably true that in the class with students who, on average, have lower GPAs (they have to indicate their GPA on the form and I get a breakdown) that I get lower rankings and if the students have higher GPAs I get higher rankings. 4) Students clearly interpret the question "Showed an interest in student achievment" to mean "I got a good grade in the class." (Indeed, on balance, it is fairly clear that every question is at least partially interpreted as "I got a good grade in this class.") 5) Students like to gripe about textbooks. Posted by Steven Taylor at May 19, 2024 10:16 AM | TrackBackComments
Um, I have been out of college for 10 years and I still gripe about textbooks. Granted I still have almost all of them. (I dropped one in the pool a few years ago) I even still use some as sleep aides. :) Posted by: Rob M at May 19, 2024 12:01 PMYeah, I'll gripe about textbooks too. I really hated it when I had to buy the new edition Biology book for $80+, and when the quarter ended could not get the bookstore to buy it back because the following year the department announced the publisher is releasing yet another vwesion and they were using that. Posted by: mark at May 19, 2024 02:28 PMToo funny. 15 years out of college and I'm here to gripe about textbooks, too. 1. They're too expensive. Period. It's a scam. 2. It's a royal pain when the professor decides that the newest edition is absolutely required, which means that students aren't able to resell the older versions. Most times the changes were minimal and the older version would have sufficed. 3. I stopped buying the books for any of my classes after the first semester of my freshman year. For the 100 levels, I was able to share with my next door neighbors in my dorm. Once in my major, I bought a couple of the books, because I thought I'd like to have them later. A few times I split the cost of a book with someone who was taking the same class with the same prof but at a different time - we swapped the book back and forth. And there were a multitude of classes that I managed to get through with no book at all - in most of those cases, the prof never made reference to book content and it was never included on exams. It seems to me that the academy would pay attention to the gripes of the students about books if it's such a common complaint. Posted by: jen at May 19, 2024 09:15 PMActually, the gripes I am talking about are "the book is boring" or stuff along those lines---not the cost issue--although I hear about that, too--but not on the evals. Posted by: Steven at May 19, 2024 09:18 PMI do not know if I had more than two textbooks in all of middle school, high school, or college that were the opposite of boring. Photography was one of them... Posted by: Rick at May 20, 2024 05:09 AMTextbooks are expensive because of poor economies of scale--they aren't sold in enough quantity to spread out the production costs--and because of various marketing issues that regular books don't have. Profs generally don't have the option of specifying the previous edition. Indeed, I've specified the extant edition only to be surprised myself a couple days before class with a mildly revised version. Profs don't want to upgrade to the new edition, since it means they either have to re-read the damned thing in order to get the page numbers right or be slightly off from what the students have. Posted by: James Joyner at May 20, 2024 09:53 AMI assumed the "books are boring" complaint was a given. All textbooks are boring, it's the nature of the beast. James, if profs don't want the newer editions, they who's forcing them to be used? The administration? Every semester we had new editions demanded of us on our syllabi. Posted by: jen at May 20, 2024 01:14 PMI've been out of the uni for 3 years but I still gripe about textbooks as well. It's a common thing I guess. We need better books not to lag behind. Posted by: Nancy at June 10, 2024 10:50 AMVisit my website to find out more about me. Posted by: Bill Myong at July 1, 2024 09:06 AMPost a comment
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