Finally, the moment has come. The chance is here to let out all the collected frustrations of months of small failures and miscommunications to the person who may be the source of angst: course evaluations.
University of Wisconsin student feedback on courses is tabulated by the Associated Students of Madison and posted online for those who want some sense of what classes are like. The site’s feedback for the spring semester of 2003, however, is incomplete because some departments are extremely late on or oblivious to the obligation.
“Department culture varies from department to department,” said Jacob Stampen, a professor emeritus of education administration for UW. “Some departments place a lesser emphasis on teaching and concentrate on research.”
Some UW students who feel a professor’s approach to the material has been tedious, overbearing or discombobulated plan their responses to the reviews in advance only to abandon them at the moment of truth.
“A lot of times I plan what I’m going to say over the course of the semester,” UW junior Ilana Stoler said. “But on the actual evaluations, I feel bad. I feel like if I wrote what I really felt I would get [the professors] in trouble.”
Stoler also said she often feels rushed by the way evaluations are administered. When materials for the review are handed out at the end of a lecture, students who do not take the evaluations seriously or are anxious to leave may rush through their forms.
“I’ve had evaluations pretty much over the last week,” Stoler said, adding when students begin to shuffle out of a lecture hall, the remaining students often feel hurried.
Stoler suggested if students liked a professor and was genuinely concerned about his or her teaching ability, they would perhaps write the teacher a personal email, but semester evaluations frequently turn into cheap shots at a poorly received instructor.
Stampen said he had received feedback of both kinds through his career.
“Sometimes people come right up to you and say ‘I’m trying to help,'” Stampen said. “Sometimes it is what is in the evaluations that is helpful.”
Becky Schwartz, a UW junior, said when students think of feedback, they make mental notes in advance.
“In some of my courses, I was planning remarks from day one,” Schwartz said, who is in a school with competitive admissions, which causes most of the students to take course evaluations seriously.
“I think I’ve only seen one person walk out of the lecture hall and blow it off,” Schwartz said.
Stampen said feedback was a necessary part of the educational system.
“Course evaluations are feedback on how you’re doing,” he said. “Like any feedback, it can be useful and at times it is not.”
Stampen recalled receiving educational feedback from students regarding the courses he taught, which often considered the importance of teachers receiving educational feedback.
“What I was teaching was that feedback could be better if it was a little more frequent,” Stampen said. “Perhaps only two questions, something like every other week: what’s going well, and what could be better.”
