Blog Entry #9

Feedback - I feel feedback is extremely important when being a college professor. Students should be able to feel comfortable giving feedback related to assignments, concerns, or how the professor is doing. The information provided early in a course can help turn things around for a student(s) before it is too late. When I taught a class last summer, I was encouraged by my advisor to send out an anonymous mid-term survey. I have never completed a mid-term survey for any of my classes, so it seemed odd. I was able to get a couple constructive points (such as spacing out assignments more) that I incorporated right away. I notice in COMM 702 we are going to submit mid-term evaluations, so I believe this is the right thing to do for the students as well as for myself. When I teach my next college class, I will ask the students to complete a mid-term evaluation and a end of the course evaluation. This will more than likely be done on blackboard. I like the idea of asking open ended questions rather than asking for simple "yes" or "no" responses. I do not like the idea of formal feedback (such as having one-on-one conferences). I feel students (especially undergraduate students) would not be willing to share if they had any major concerns or suggestions for improvements. I would thing you would get your occasional student who would provide honest feedback, but at an undergraduate level, this would be rare (in my opinion). At a graduate level this would be different. I can see have formal feedback sessions with graduate students. The time commitment would be an issue. To do a good job soliciting feedback during one-on-one sessions would take a great deal of time. I am not a supporter of have small group feedback sessions for the sack to save time. The only way I would use this type of approach would be for graduate level students with classes of no more than 15-20. A nice rubric for online instructors is: http://www.csuchico.edu/celt/roi/rubric/fsf.shtml. This should prove to be helpful since I plan on teaching online courses in the future.

Reading Feedback - Initially, I use to cringe when I had to read feedback I received from people. In my "past life" I needed to ask for feedback on my presentations and programs I coordinated. As time when on, I was more comfortable reading the feedback and deciding if it was worthwhile to make changes. When I taught my class last summer and had students complete a mid-term and final evaluation, I was OK with the constructive comments and were able to make changes the students felt were necessary. I like the suggestions the book made related to related to reading evaluations. I agree with not reading the evaluations before teaching a class since it could cause a a person to lose focus on the teaching topic and make it obvious that the comments affected the professor. Reading evaluations with a friend for moral support is also a good idea (especially if the class was somewhat difficult). I would imagine the person you are reading them with (if they also teach) have had similar comments. Lastly, I plan on rereading the positive comments since often times people forget the positive comments and well only on the negative ones. This would be helpful to be sure I stay positive and constantly grow as a college instructor. I know there are many sites online that asks for professor feedback. Apparently, students can look up a certain profesor to see if they would like to enroll in the professors class. One such site is Know Your Professor (http://www.knowyourprofessor.com/). I wonder if any professors check out this site to see what students write about them. Is this feedback helpful? I am not sure. I looked for Dr. Platt's name, but no luck. I think I would check out the site and take the information with a grain of salt. Some of the information might be helpful.

Teaching Large Classes - I would like to think things have changed since my very first class I attended when I was a undergraduate student (739 students). This class was strictly lecture with very little interaction with the professor and no small group discussion. If you had a question, the professor asked for your social security number and did not care about your name. I am not sure how many large classes like this still exist, but I do know the professor cannot ask for your social security number. As the book mentioned, due to decreasing government support and increasing enrollment, some universities still have large classes without small group discussion. I would be fine with have the lecture part of my Wellness undergraduate course having 150-200 students, but at least one a week, they need to meet in small groups (less than 10 students) to discuss the material. I liked the idea ad plan on incorporating "study groups" so students can work together outside of class if small group sessions during class time is not possible. Getting students to interact in large classes is important (as mentioned in the book). They discussed using technology since many student might not feel comfortable answering question in a large lecture setting. This technique would be helpful in the field of wellness since many topics covered are somewhat sensitive (such as STDs, Drugs, Alcohol, Mental Health Issues, etc.). NDSU has the Personal Response System (PRS) which some classes use. It is my understanding that many students have these devices. I have been through training related to PRS, but never used them in a class (as a student or instructor). I also plan on using the "Poll Everywhere" Internet program shared in COMM 702. It seems like at least 95% of students have a cell phone and can text their responses to the site. I have never used this as an instructor, but as a student, I found this a great tool to use. I am not sure what I would do if a student or two did not have a cell phone. Barrow a friends? Use mine? I guess I will cross that bridge when I get there. I liked the article from the University of California, Berkley "Tools for Teaching" (http://teaching.berkeley.edu/bgd/largelecture.html). Tips suggested include: Change the pace of the lecture every 15 minutes due to the students attention span. Prepare a detailed syllabus for student's and to visit the classroom before the first class. Many of tips are mentioned as well.