Dixie State University professors were given the opportunity to hear from students more than once each semester with a new type of evaluation.
The faculty excellence committee, in charge of promoting academic standards, started the survey program.
Helen Saar, associate professor of finance, said, “The objective of the faculty excellence committee is to give faculty a tool that would give them valuable feedback so they can provide an even better learning experience to our students.”
Midterm evaluations are available on Canvas with two additional questions from professors who were able to personalize these evaluations. The feedback is designed to help professors make adjustments in the classroom.
“If students need something different from me, I can make adjustments for students in my current class rather than waiting to make changes for a future semester,” said Cheri Crenshaw, professor of English.
Crenshaw added questions that pertained to her personal teaching methods. The questions can be changed and altered every semester for each class a professor has.
The biggest problem appears to be student involvement with the surveys.
Crenshaw reported a 25% response rate from one of her classes and 66% in her other class. She has had luck in the past with giving out extra credit, but prefers to keep that until the end of semester evaluations. After this set of evaluations, she plans to tell her students of the adjustments she’s going to make in the classroom.
For some professors, midterm evaluations are more helpful than the end of semester evaluations because they can start to make changes during the semester.
“Midterm reviews are better than the end of course evaluations in my opinion, because I still have time to adjust my teaching to make it a good experience for the students,” said Cindy Greenman, associate professor of accounting.
Crenshaw said students should have a voice in their education and these evaluations will help better the classrooms.
Improving student response rates is an important part of this project and the software they are using helps with that. By improving the survey questions and adding the option to create their own questions, faculty hope to get better responses and be more motivated to get students to complete the surveys.
