Profgrrrrl had a great post about student evals earlier this month. After ten years of excellent evals, semester after semester, I was slammed with poor evals last semester. Yes, it was only one section; yes, students in the other section of the same course gave me much better evals; yes, I know that I did my best and earned those evals because I demanded quality work, on time. Still, it landed me in a very serious trouble. Worse, it made me doubt myself because I couldn't help thinking if maybe I have lost touch with students, if maybe I lost the ability to reach out to them and make sure they leave my class with valuable knowledge and skills.
Well, one session of this semester is over and I think I did a good job with this particular group of students. Based on their final projects, most of them learned quite a bit and were able to apply new skills to a real-life situation. Student evals have been turned in and I nervously (hate the feeling!!!) await the results.
Teaching one student at a time... Making one yummy treat at a time... Struggling with life... Having Fun!!!
