Evaluations

Intergroup Dialogue Course Evaluations

Below, I have provided student feedback from the end-of-course evaluations collected by Syracuse University. Overall, we received overwhelmingly positive feedback, which included students naming the course as a creative and safe place, sharing a gratitude for hearing from other people's perspectives, citing diverse readings as a course strength, and making clear connections to the School of Education's signature value of Inclusvie and Anti-Racist Pedagogy.

Fall2024_IGD _feedback.pdf

Fall 2024

Course Feedback

The American School Course Evaluations

Below, I have provided feedback from informal surveys and university taken during mid-term and end-of-semester courses. All responses are anonymous from students and include questions about course engagement, how they're doing overall, and feedback to me as an instructor/facilitator.

To the left, I am providing specific comments from students about discussion facilitation. To the right, I have noted which semester the evaluations are from (beginning with my first semester), my takeaways from student feedback, and how I have/want to apply feedback in future teaching opportunities and semesters.

*Currently EDU 310 does not collect feedback from students regarding teaching assistants through the university evaluation system.

Fall 2022 - Semester 1

For my informal survey at the end of my first semester, I learned a few things from student feedback.

First, I needed to push student responses as I only got 3!

Second, I learned that feedback really is important for student learning and growth, so I began to more heavily incorporate peer/self evaluations in my second semester and began to provide more one-to-one feedback as students submited critical responses and papers for the course.

Spring 2023 - Semester 2

In my second semester, I was pleased to have 10 responses out of 17 students (as opposed to the 3 from my first term.

First, I learned that curating a space for students to share their thoughts and opinions and disagree with each other in safe place is important. I also found it helpful to clarify as students shared and repeating back. I tried to name this as I modeled it to students and saw more students utilizing this method in their group discussions.

Second, as a teacher, I like to move between group discussion and small groups often, staying in one activity for no longer than 10 minutes - something I learned teaching middle school. I really leaned into this during the second semester and found students stayed really engaged with this method.

Fall 2023 - Semester 3

During the third semester of teaching this course, all TAs in EDU 310 collaborated for an informal survey at the end of the term. These responses are from that survey.

In this semester, I continued to push more into moving through multiple activities over the same content; however, in the last comment you can see a student seemed to be tiring of this. I am thinking now, in my fourth semester, how I can keep content enriched at the end of the term or expand on content offered during lectures.

In addition, I also noticed many students commented on feedback in regards to course assignments - this is the area across terms where I have many students respond via email or in meetings about what is most helpful to them. As a best teaching practice, it is one that I also find helpful to know what material needs to be revisited or reconceptualized for student understanding.

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