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Re: Are student evaluations useful?




From my own experience in teaching a radically-structured lecture-lean
course which relied heavily on cooperative learning, students said they had
to work and think far harder for me than they did in other courses. They
also said, by the end of the course, that it was worth it. These were
engineering students who realized that physics and calculus were reasonably
important to them.

Other students who are taking physics to satisfy some rule would be less
sanguine, I would guess.


A great deal less sanguine. I got the same response -- from those who
stuck with it -- last year. The rest are still petitioning to have it
erased from their records. They are too used to courses in which
there is no homework to speak of and so mine sticks out. These,
incidentally, are science majors so the fact that they seem to
dislike doing science in any way other than by rote is disheartening.

On the other hand, that half of the class who did stick with it refer
to it as the most important class they took here, have recommended to
anyone who will listen that there should be more courses like it, and
still come back to talk over with me problems in other classes or in
undergrad research projects.

Guess which group the administrators listen to? That's the thing
about evaluations -- there is generally a sufficient variety of
viewpoints to support any prejudice.

Paul J. Camp "The Beauty of the Universe
Assistant Professor of Physics consists not only of unity
Coastal Carolina University in variety but also of
Conway, SC 29528 variety in unity.
pjcamp@coastal.edu --Umberto Eco
pjcamp@postoffice.worldnet.att.net The Name of the Rose
(803)349-2227
fax: (803)349-2926