Digital Analogue

Allow me to brag

I'm not normally given to bragging, but I just got my course evaluations from FP last term, and I got the awesomest reviews EVAR, and I just had to share. By the numbers, I hit some really nice marks, like 62% "very helpful" on "instructor's feedback", or 71% "strongly agree" on "clear explanations", or 62% "excellent" on "effectiveness of the instructor", all of which were way higher than the overall faculty averages over the last three years, and actually, quite a bit higher than my own scores last year, iirc. The written comments were also pretty fantastic, with one student simply writing, "This was the best class I had this term." Another said of me that "the instructor had this sort of aura of ease about him, and certainly helps me form my opinion on what college instructors should be like." That's like the Holy Grail of student evaluation comments. There was also praise for my ability to let discussion tangent a bit in interesting ways, without letting it get too far afield.

Of the nine that turned in written comments, two had mostly negative things to say, alas—but not so much about me as about the idea of FP. One claimed to be speaking for "most of us, in the Knox Community", which I thought was interesting, but said that they found classes like this to be bullshitty and lame. In particular, they objected to the idea that everyone "be forced to talk"; which, honestly, is something I've wavered on myself. I do think it's a bit unfair to the quieter types, but without requiring some minimal level of participation, I'm sort of at a loss as to how to divide the attentive-but-quiet from the totally-zoned-out. Ah well, something to work on for next year.

"I feel kind of bad that I probably tripped up her innate sense that some kind of spin control needed to be done on this issue. I wish I knew the secret 'don't worry you don't have to schmooze me' handshake." --Zach Miller