A lot of stock is put into student evaluations — not sure how much by others outside of doing an “ok job”, but I certainly used to read and mull over them to keep improving my teaching. When I first taught at O’Neill, I was given a mixed course of about 45 students which included sophomores through masters and MBA students. Needless to say, as a first time instructor, this was a challenging audience.
Today, as we start the new semester, I wanted to share my evaluations from last semester: Here you go. This was the second time I taught a thoroughly revised course on Energy Systems in Transition. You can find my syllabus on the courses page.
There are always a couple of students who will not like your course. Negative reviews hurt a lot more than the joy that positive reviews elicit. My goal with sharing evaluations publicly is to say we all have negative reviews and there will always be someone who does not like the course you offer or your teaching style. My sense, after over a decade of teaching and discussing this issue with others, is that this is simply how it is. It has the potential to sting, but we need to let it go, and not let the strong gravity of the negative diminish our love for the material, for change, or for our students. Some of my colleagues don’t read their reviews at all. Anyways, I hope this helps you.
I reflect on this before teaching my first classes later today: E183 Environment and People to 64 undergraduate students, followed by Human Behavior and Energy Consumption to 20 graduate students. I wish you all a wonderful semester.