By Samuel Hebestreit
Professors have a duty to teach, and professors have their own styles of teaching. Course evaluations provide an opportunity for students to voice their opinions and thoughts about a course they are taking.
BU Vice Provost Dr. Mark Wiegand said, “All courses that are taught during the semester have a student evaluation of the course and of the faculty members.”
For some professors, course evaluations are an opportunity to view the course through the students' eyes.
“I see from my own personal teacherly perspective, but I’m not them, right? I’m not coming to the class with their preexisting knowledge and their skill set,” BU Honors program adviser and English professor Dr. John Blandford said.
For others, such as BU biology professor Dr. Mark Kaelin, the more honest students are on the course evaluations, the more he will be able to improve.
“Honest constructive criticism. It’s just got to be constructive. Just like students are trying to get better, instructors are trying to get better because if I don’t know what's wrong, I can't fix it,” Kaelin said.
From the vice provost's perspective, course evaluations are a good opportunity to gain feedback – positive or negative – about the course.
“It’s an opportunity for students to provide feedback to the faculty member about things that they thought went well in the course, things that may not have gone as well, to provide ideas and suggestions for doing things differently and just to give faculty an opportunity to reflect on what students' thoughts were of the course,” Wiegand said.
Students are the reason course evaluations exist. It’s key to understand why students complete them, even though they are optional.
“I think professors appreciate course evaluations because it gives them the chance to improve, and I think generally because professors are scholars themselves and they like learning, that they want to improve, and they always want to grow and change,” BU senior Claire Parker said.
The pandemic was an example of how quickly learning styles can change. Tailoring the course to the student's needs can make learning more effective.
“I think we need to be adapting to the changing needs of our students, the changing learning styles of our students, the fact that our students are coming out of unprecedented educational disruption in the form of the pandemic, and the course evaluations can give us all a more granulated sense of that,” Blandford said.
For professors to determine what changes to make to a class, they must look at the class from a student's point of view.
“I think you just need to step back and kind of look at it and say, ‘Okay, what were the students' thoughts on it and what can I take away from that to move forward to build a better course?’ Because everyone’s just trying to build the best course they can,” Kaelin said.
Although course evaluations are a great opportunity, the fact they are optional sometimes causes students not to complete them.
“We find that if the opportunity is given in the class for students to complete a course evaluation, then the return rate is much higher. If the students are asked to do it outside of class, the return rates are much lower,” Wiegand said.
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