Student Evaluations

This past week, we started the second quarter and with that came a new lineup of classes for me.  I picked up a Consumer Education class to give me three preps.  But it is 8th hour and I already was teaching an Intro class then, so I had to switch around my lineup of classes I teach in the afternoon.  I wanted to have those students in the class that I was formerly teaching to evaluate me, and my cooperating teachers assisted in getting that done.  (I didn't want to potentially skew the results by administering the evaluation myself.)  

I was in the middle of grading papers when the evaluations were dropped off on my desk.  I wanted to finish grading and then look over the results.  But I couldn't resist the urge to immediately pour over them.  These evaluations were from probably my "toughest" class so far.  They are a very chatty class and I sometimes struggle to get them refocused and stop talking with their neighbor.  A few weeks ago, I had to take a few minutes and discuss this issue with them and also assign them a seating chart in the computer lab.  Because of all of that, I was really anxious to see what would come back on these evaluations.  As expected, they were pretty mixed with some pretty good and some pretty bad ones.  The good part was that there wasn't any that were really negative.  A few even made me laugh.  For example, one of the questions was: What could I do differently or better.  One of my students replied that I should have chosen a more interesting subject to teach.  

One of the more interesting aspects was finding out that I have a word that I use too much and repeatedly in class.  This was one area in particular that I was paying close attention to.  Both of my cooperating teachers have informed me that I use the words "you guys" very often throughout my classes.  I have tried to make adjustments and work on this throughout the semester.  The really interesting part was that not one student mentioned that I use a word too much, but it wasn't "you guys."  There were three students who mentioned that I use the word "exactly" too often.  So here I am trying to make sure that I don't say one particular catch-phrase and I end up using another one too much.  But the good news is that I am aware of all of this and have something to focus on improving.  

I can't wait to get the rest of my evaluations from the other classes that I am teaching to hear what they have to say.  No offense to my college supervisor or my cooperating teachers, but I believe that the most important evaluation of myself comes from my students because they are the ones that have been with me everyday throughout this incredible journey and they are most important.