Students are accustomed to bubbling in evaluation forms at the quarter’s end, but some instructors are interested in learning how their students feel about them before the term has even ended.
More instructors are administering midterm evaluations to their students in order to improve their techniques sooner rather than later. Institutions such as Harvard University, Pennsylvania State University and Princeton University are noting the advantages of this method of evaluation, according to Princeton’s website — and professors at Ohio University agree.
Jeremy Kohler, an OU graduate student studying and teaching Spanish, asked his students to fill out an evaluation during the sixth week of this quarter. The evaluations asked students about his teaching performance and about the course itself.
Kohler said the results helped him realize what his students wanted from him as an instructor for the remainder of the course.
For example, he said the evaluations showed him that students were interested in learning more about Spanish-speaking cultures rather than just vocabulary and grammar.
“If you feel like you’re not reaching students like you thought you were, (midterm evaluations are) a good way to find your strengths and weaknesses,” he said.
Muriel Gallego, the director of the 100-level Spanish program, recommended that her instructors administer midterm evaluations this quarter. These evaluations are very similar to the formal ones given at the end of the quarter. She said she discovered the method when she wanted feedback about her own teaching style at the beginning of her career as a teacher’s assistant.
The timeliness of these evaluations is beneficial, she said, because instructors don’t normally receive feedback from formal end-of-term evaluations until the fifth week of the next quarter. The results from the mid-quarter evaluations were immediate.
Gallego said she takes student comments seriously and used them to completely reshape the curriculum of the 100-level Spanish program her first year as director.
“(Some instructors) feel that students don’t have the capability to offer good comments and constructive criticism, but they do,” she said.
She emphasized the impact student evaluations can have on an instructor’s career. Negative student comments in evaluations can result in a TA’s removal from the teaching program, she said. She added that evaluations also impact a professor’s tenure process.
“If there is someone out there that’s not doing a very good job, that person needs to know,” she said.
Gallego said she recommends other departments consider midterm evaluations for their instructors. The results of doing so in her department were positive, she said. Instructors reported back to her that students were especially pleased because they felt their instructors were listening to them.
Melinda Rutherford, an instructor in the Patton College of Education and Human Services, said she has used websites such as Blackboard and SurveyMonkey to get midterm feedback from students. She added that it was much easier to administer formal midterm evaluations when she worked at schools on the semester system — which OU will implement in fall 2012.
“Ten weeks is not long enough to implement midterm evaluations as a formal university procedure, but the semester schedule would provide the perfect opportunity and timeframe for such a project,” she said in an email.
Not all professors agree that formal midterm evaluations are the best method for obtaining student feedback.
Marilyn Atlas, an associate professor of American literature, said she prefers to approach students individually throughout the term for comments on the course.
“Cute professors do better (on evaluations), young instructors do better, those who give a bunch of praise do better, those who are not middle-aged, grumpy women do better,” she said in an email.
Atlas added that students should evaluate their instructors five or 10 years after the conclusion of a course. That would be helpful in analyzing the effect instructors have upon their students in the long run, she said.
Erin Carlson, a sophomore studying international studies, said she liked the idea of providing feedback before the end of the quarter. She added that she always provides professors with honest answers on course evaluations.
“I like (evaluations). I take them seriously,” she said. “I hope professors do too.”
