Student Evaluations

At the end of each semester, students are asked to provide feedback for the course, the instructor, and the teaching assistant. I believe this feedback is a valuable tool in assessing one’s own performance and the effectiveness of the material taught in a course. I take this feedback seriously and work to both address student concerns brought up in the evaluations as well as to recognize what the students enjoyed and try to further enhance that material. Broadly, these evaluations serve as a tool for me to question: How can I do better? What am I doing right? And what would make the course a more effective learning environment?

Below are my teaching evaluations for all of the courses I have been a teaching assistant at Syracuse University as well as the last semester I was a teaching assistant at Marquette University (the first semester the Marquette history department evaluated teaching assistants). Additionally, there are evaluations for HST 214 (African History Since 1800) and HST 200 (History of the Early Modern and Modern Indian Ocean World) where I was the instructor of record.

The teaching assistant evaluations have two components. The first section is quantitative and asks students to rate the teaching assistant based on several statements. Students score the teaching assistant on a scale of one through five. Those scores meaning: 1 (Strongly Disagree), 2 (Disagree), 3 (Neutral), 4 (Agree), or 5 (Strongly Agree). These scores are calculated and a mean score is provided to indicate areas of strength and weakness. The second component is qualitative and prompts students to answer two open-ended questions: “Please use this space to write any comments or suggestions you have about this course” and “Please use this space to write any comments or suggestions you have about your teaching assistant.” These give students broad flexibility to praise or criticize anything that might have stood out about the quality of their teaching assistant or the discussion sections facilitated by their teaching assistant.

I have actively tried to address both student concerns and student requests brought up in teaching evaluations. For example in the fall 2017 evaluation I had a student bring up that I let another student dominate the discussion at times. I took note of this and made efforts to prevent the enthusiasm of one student from disrupting the experience of other students and have not had any similar complaints since. I have also listened to and incorporated student feedback about classroom activities to adjusted my lesson plans to better engage students. One instance would be in my fall 2017 evaluation, a student suggested adding more Kahoots [interactive online quizzes] into discussion sections, which I have subsequently done. Many of the student evaluations draw attention to my approachability and my accessibility. This is indicative that my teaching persona, and the classroom environment I foster, rouses students to engage with material and reach out to me with questions, concerns, and curiosities. I have found that this environment encourages students to voice concerns that the class benefits from discussing openly, to make and share connections between historical material, and to pursue their curiosities more—and more openly—which greatly benefits class discussion and group learning.

I hope these evaluations demonstrate the true extent of my passion for teaching and of getting the best out of my students.

Instructor of Record Evaluation

The instructor evaluations take the same approach as the teaching assistant evaluations outlined above, but provide additional detail. First students are asked to provide some demographic information and to self report aspects of their own performance in the course. Students then quantitatively rate aspects of the course in a similar fashion to that outlined above. The final section asks students to provide qualitatively feedback on the course and instructor from these prompts: “What aspects of this course were most successful? Why?,” “What aspects of this course would you change?,” and “What topics or themes did you most enjoy learning about?”

Summer 2022 Student Evaluations – HST 122 Global History since 1750 (Instructor of Record)

Spring 2021 Student Evaluations – Early Modern and Modern Indian Ocean World (instructor of record)

Spring 2019 Student Evaluations – African History Since 1800 (instructor of record)