Survey Says…

Right after the spring break, I handed out a paper survey to my students, asking for feedback about my teaching. Although we were just a little over halfway through the semester, I wanted to know “how am I doing?” I put together what I thought was a pretty straight forward, anonymous survey, that had two parts- one asking about my laboratory teaching, and one asking about the lecture portion. I distributed the survey at the end of a well-attended class, and every student handed it back in to me when they left.
Now, I could have gone with a digital survey, and I actually had started one on SurveyMonkey. SurveyMonkey is pretty cool, and it was rather easy to put my questions into their online format. But one thing was bothering me… if I gave the survey online, how would I ensure that each student completed it? I didn’t want to offer bonus points for completing it… to me that felt like influencing them to say nice things if I was giving them something in return for it. I really wanted to get the opinions of as many students as possible. While digital-anything gets their attention, it does not seem to be the case when asking for information in the form of a survey. The institution where I am teaching is rolling out a new “Student Satisfaction” online survey and online evaluations for their professors. While the technology is great, there is still a problem of getting the students to comply, short of physically containing them in a classroom with computers and having them sit there until they do it.
So. For that sole reason, I went with an old-fashioned paper survey, with 10 questions on one side and 11 on the other. For the majority of the questions, I listed 3-4 responses, which I gave number values. In the end, I averaged the numbers of responses for each question, and got an “overall” value to give me an idea of how I am doing. In case you are interested in what I asked, I have attached a copy of my survey and responses to this blog post.
How did I do? Well, overall I have to say that I am not doing too bad. I received unanimous responses for a few questions, indicating that they think I return graded materials in a timely manner, and that they think I “know my stuff” when it comes to their confidence in my knowledge. When I asked the students to give me a letter grade for my teaching, I received mostly A’s and a few B’s- I will take that!
Was I surprised by anything? Not really- from other speaking and presenting experiences, I am fairly aware of some of my flaws when it comes to standing up at the podium. At times, I speak too fast. Sometimes I will beat a topic to death if it is something that I think is important. Also, I am not surprised that they do not think I am the fairest grader in all the land. Many hate my questions, mostly for the fact that I refuse to give all-multiple choice tests. (Some will outright skip any short answer questions for that reason.) And I am fine with that- I will continue to say what I have said all semester: “Life is not multiple choice; come up with your own answers.” In response to their opinion that I do not grade as fairly as I could be, I came up with my own strategy to address the issue. For the third exam, I had them write questions test questions as a bonus opportunity. If they wrote a good question, I used it on the exam. In the end, one-third of the exam points were from student questions, and honestly, many were harder than what I would usually ask! And, the kicker, was that they wrote a lot of short-answer questions!!! So when they complain about the exam being hard, I will respond that they helped to write it. 🙂
One thing that I was slightly surprised by was their choice of their favorite and least favorite labs. Lab #4, which was pretty straight forward and not very exciting in my opinion, beat out the cool epidemiology Lab #7 (which came in second). Their least favorite labs at least were ones that we had in the beginning, which were necessary to learn basic techniques. So I guess they were a little dry in comparison to what we are doing now, but important in building the basic skills that they now breeze through.
I take that back… I *am* surprised by how well they think I am doing overall, and it gives me confidence that I have a possible future as a professor.
What did I learn from my survey? I gathered that overall, they like what I am doing, and that some of their grievances are things that are out of my control (they had problems using the microscopes, they dislike the 8am starting time for class, they think 3 hours is too long to schedule a lab, etc.) I have tried to address some of these items, though, by choosing future labs that do not require a lot (if any) microscope time, and allowing them to come in at 8:30 for labs on days that I know they do not need 3 hours to complete the exercise. Some asked for review sessions before the exams- I began to use PollEverywhere in class to ask questions that are similar to those that they will see on the exam, and last exam we held 2 separate review sessions to help them prepare. Will I change my grading so that they think I am more fair? No, but by having them write questions for the exam and making them accountable for some of the points on it, I think we are evening out the “fairness” field. I will make a greater attempt to select the content that I think is important to be covered, and give myself enough time to cover it so that I am not rushed (which happens when you have only a precious 50 minutes to teach in a lecture and only so many lectures left in the semester).
Overall, I am happy with my progress so far this semester, and glad that the students like my teaching style. Let the countdown begin for the end of the semester!

PS- As my last name looks similar to a brand of ice cream, some of the students have been calling me “Dr. Ice Cream”… which I find humorous 🙂 Even more amusing is when I find little notes on my white boards, such as this one from the lab:

Micro Midterm Survey Results