#student evaluations

The damn search functions here means I can never find these - so, starting a link here to reblog and link to my course evaluations, good and bad: Spring 2016 Fall 2016

Spring 2017

Fall 2017

Spring 2018

Imagine a world where hunting and gathering have become really important, again. It's not hard to imagine.

Some of the people in each community are pretty good at hunting and/or gathering. A subset of those seem to be pretty good at helping others learn. Some of the community members ask them to teach others how to do what they do. They agree, because they mostly want to help everyone survive and be happier and more comfortable. Community members and, later, mayors and councilmembers, agree to pay the hunter/gatherer teachers for their services, because they want more people to, like, survive. After a few years of this, there are hundreds or even thousands of instructors across the land, teaching tens or hundreds of thousands of students.

Inevitably, managers show up. Local mayors and councilmembers insist that someone has to take charge of these hunting/gathering instructors (HGIs): make sure everyone gets maximum learning and, most of all, prevent the HGIs from making the mayors, councilmembers, and possibly other people look bad for not knowing all the things. They convince the voters. The managers take charge. Managers have complete control over what the HGIs are paid, whether they stay employed, and what rules apply to how they teach. They also get to hire more managers.

No manager knows how to do the jobs of the HGIs they manage. Some managers know a few things--maybe one manager got that job by being really good at finding root vegetables in swamp locations, years ago--but they're tasked with managing dozens of HGIs each, with a diverse array of specializations. There's no way any one manager could know more than a fraction of all those skills. Even the managers who started out with some relevant skills and knowledge get rusty after a few years of full-time managing.

The managers are keenly aware that they have a built-in problem: they've promised the mayors and councilmembers that they will Manage the HGIs. That means they need to change how the HGIs do things, or else what is the point of a manager? If a manager doesn't change anything, someone will figure out pretty quickly that the managers is not needed, or at least that fewer managers are needed—the number is increasing rapidly, soon rivaling the number of instructors (though, paradoxically, most managers have very little contact with HGIs on a daily or weekly basis). So the managers find things to change. They make lists of learning outcomes. They find problems in how the instruction is happening. They suggest improvements. They get together in HGI Management Retreats and share ideas about what they can change.

The managers come back from their retreats and make new rules for the HGIs. The HGIs frequently point out that some of the changes don't make anything better or provide any benefit except to the HGI Management profession. The managers know how to deal with this: they rank the HGIs, and make sure being "on board" with new "initiatives" and "platforms" is a key part of the ranking. They give some HGIs awards. They issue vague threats to others. They tell the community members that the HGIs are out of touch with the needs of common people and resistant to progress.

HGIs organize. They form discipline-specific units. They sometimes even form unions. Managers tell the mayors, the councilmembers, and the townsfolk that these socialist eggheads are too powerful. They say the HGIs are politicizing their students, that the HGIs are fomenting rebellion and unrest. They say the HGIs are feeding their students crazy ideas about the mayors and councilmembers, such as ridiculous notions about resource preservation, environmentalism, and wealth inequality.

Newer generations of students come to learn from the HGIs, and many of these students don't really want to learn to hunt or gather at all. They have been told that if they don't get a Certificate of Hunting/Gathering Competency, they will never get a good job. They don't particularly like learning how to track and trap animals, how to clean fish, how to cultivate berries, how to find the best wild fruits, how to avoid poisonous bushes and venomous animals, etc. They don't believe these are helpful or useful skills. To be fair, many of them probably won't need these skills in the world that is evolving around them, but here they are, asking the HGIs to teach them and hoping to get a certificate. To be fair, many students do learn, and have varying levels of enjoyment or appreciation of the skills, but it doesn't take very many pretending-to-learn/really-just-wanting-certificates students to create some problems.

Managers understand that students don't always like learning, and they encourage students to come to them with any complaints. The number one complaint is that an HGI has told the student that they have not learned things and therefore cannot be given a Certificate of Competency. When students complain, managers tell students they are right and valued and their concerns are important, and they subtly or overtly blame the students' unhappiness on the HGIs. Managers don't know how to help students learn more effectively, except for some generalizations they've been given at their Management Retreats, so they default to gauging happiness and satisfaction. They encourage students to demand satisfaction. The managers in this post-apocalyptic world reinvent the concept of the Karen.

Managers tell HGIs that their job is most critically about the "student experience." Instructors must help students feel happy and unpressured. They insist that no student can learn if they are not actively being valued or enertained or possibly validated. "Of course," they say, "nobody is asking you to water down your standards, teach students less, or accept less knowledge or skill for a Certificate…" but the HGIs notice nobody ever gets fired—or even "disciplined"—for lowering standards. On the other hand, many hunting/gathering instructors who don't help students feel "valued" and "engaged" while learning to avoid death, find nutritious food, and keep others healthy find themselves having a "disciplinary meeting" with one of their managers, then becoming unemployed for apparently-unrelated reasons.

Managers begin telling HGIs their effectiveness at teaching hunting/gathering skills and knowledge must be evaluated. The HGIs agree, because each of them has known (or known of) a couple of HGIs who are total fuckups or just questionably competent, and competence is very, very important to HGIs. Managers say the best way to evaluate teaching effectiveness is to ask the students some extremely general questions about their experience while learning. The HGIs say, "Surely there are better ways to find out if we're effective; what about just seeing if the students know stuff and have new skills?" The managers scoff and say, "First of all, no. The only evaluation of your teaching we will accept is the responses of the most angry and disgruntled students, after they find out what you think of their learning. Second, good luck doing personalized assessments with thirty students in each of your three or four different topics." Managers control all hiring and firing and all policies and rules of Hunting/Gathering Instruction, so this is how HGIs are evaluated.

Students flock to give their feedback. Disproportionately, it is the angry students—coincidentally, disproportionately those whose instructors said that they have not yet learned sufficient survival skills and knowledge—who most consistently and most enthusiastically complete their HGI evaluation forms. These students write things on the forms like, "This so-called hunting instructor did not respect my learning style, which is to watch but not participate," and "I did not feel valued when this Edible Berries Adjunct told me I had not actually learned how to distinguish between legumes and tubers," and "worst HGI ever," and "She made me get down on the ground and smell it, and let me go for half a mile before she told me I was following my own footprints! God, it's like I had to teach MYSELF how to track rabbits!" and "My HGI disrespected me by saying I was wrong when I told the class all mushrooms are edible and nutritious. A teacher who can't appreciate multiple viewpoints has no business teaching."

Some intelligent but undiplomatic HGIs say out loud that there is no reason whatsoever why people who came to the HGIs precisely because they didn't know anything about hunting and gathering should have the knowledge to effectively evaluate their own hunting/gathering instruction. Other equally intelligent but politically unsophisticated HGIs believe they can convince managers to find more effective ways of evaluating HGI effectiveness; they show that there is no relationship between the students' opinions of how they were taught and the actual effectiveness of the teaching. Managers make great use of these criticisms by telling students that their instructors do not want them to have a voice, and want to ignore their feelings and experiences. They also tell the students' parents this.

There is a moment of anxiety for managers when they are told that they must assess the effectiveness of their own "programs" and "initiatives" and "platforms," but they quickly realize that the answer was in front of the all along: evaluate feelings and opinions about these things, or—if pressed—create an evaluation system in which individual HGIs are strongly incentivized to show that the programs etc. are effective, and are not asked for concrete evidence. The managers avoid at all costs the possibility of valid, meaningful metrics. At no point do they even respond to suggestions that their programs etc. can be evaluated by having someone who knows about hunting and gathering see how much the students have learned about hunting and gathering. There is no possibility of management advancement with such assessment methods, and a terrifying possibility that these approaches could find that the "programs," "initiatives," and "platforms" did not actually increase the effectiveness of HG instruction.

HGIs eventually begin to leave the field of HG instruction. The HGIs who remain find there are increasing numbers of instructors whose professional philosophies seem to be either "fuck it, just go along," or "If I agree with the managers enough, maybe I can be a manager someday."

Want to get a jump on student evaluations before the end of semester? Here are 5 steps for managing expectations in your law school classroom. #lawschool #legaleducation

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of week 1, or you’re only hours away from it starting.  You have prepared your lecture, and you have rehearsed your seminar or tutorial lesson plan. You’re primed to be enthusiastic and passionate about your law or legal studies subject (like we talked about here). Great job! But what if I told you, though, that now might be a good time to think about…

No real time for fancy graphics - can’t figure out if I ever posted my Spring 2019 evaluations here, so, here’s a compilation of 2019 Evaluations:

Spring 2019

2001 

-Engaging classes, with lots of back and forth. Excellent Professor.

-When I registered for this class I really thought that it was going to be boring because I can't stand lectures, but I was so wrong. Professor Y_______ created lectures that were extremely interesting and had great value to us as game majors as well as teaching us things about how the industry works as a whole. The assignments were always very relevant to the course and I really feel like I've gotten something out of this class. Not only were the lectures interesting, but they were fun and engaging as well. I really enjoyed this class.

3900 

Professor Y_____ gave great info and advice when he taught the class. But unfortunately, his presentations were far and few in between. Instead, he more so looked over and guided the class from the background. I would love to have seen some more lectures.

3175

- I think a smaller class size would benefit all of the students more (although I know that's not up to you).

-Very nice system of having students choose topics they find important

2175 

-Great professor, class can be hard.

-Really enjoyed the class in total.

- This is honestly one of the best classes I have taken at backer. I feel like I have gained the most out of this class than any other class. W___ is awesome.

- Extremely useful course

• Overall, this is one of the best classes I have taken at B_____r thus far. Professor Y_____ is very knowledgeable in the games industry, and very clearly knows what he is talking about. As with anything, there are a couple of things that could be addressed. Although assignments are graded more quickly than most other classes, there is still the occasional assignment or two that are graded a few weeks later, and it is hard to go back that long ago and redo an assignment like that if need be. The quizzes are handled in a way that is particularly stressful. Although they are a true test of what you have learned, expecting people to get low scores and then curving up afterward turns into a waiting game afterward, which sometimes takes several weeks to figure out what your true score actually is. This brings down your overall grade for a few weeks, and provides an unneeded source of stress.

- This course went well! It's a shame that so much of the class-time was lost to Holidays or snow days. But either way the only thing I wish was included, would be more stories of the professor's personal experience. Experience is "the best teacher" as many says, and hearing the stories of someone with lots of industry-related experience would benefit the class greatly in the future.

3901

Live Studio is the reason I'm still at B____r. There is so much value in what W___ and M____ are providing us students. They preach about data-driven design, proper implementation and usage of analytics, and are happy to share their vast array of experiences as well as contacts. However, it is mostly student driven, with us making games 80% of the time during class. But they are always around to provide guidance and steer us in the correct direction. They will allow us to fail, but only so that we grow, and they make sure we understand why we failed. It is an excellent course, and I am endlessly grateful for what I've learned and the opportunities I have been provided with because of it.

W___ Y_____ is the best professor at B____r College. What he teaches goes far beyond the classroom.

-Live was a blast. I'm honestly sad I cant take it next semester.

-Live studio is an amazing interactive class that is meant for students who are serious about working in a professional environment along side other students who have a good work ethic and are willing to push their boundaries to the limit for the benefit of their future and knowledge for themselves and others. Changing the registration of the class to anything but interviews, portfolios, and references would make the quality of live decrease immensely due to the poor work ethic and lack of ability in certain student groups. Keeping the high standards of live will make sure that the work that comes out of the studio will guarantee finished products and great experiences for the working students and their portfolios for when they graduate and need to get a job in their specialized fields.

-This was an amazing class to be a part of. It really felt like I was in an internship. The atmosphere was professional, but laid back too. The professors were incredible to talk and work with. They gave great advice that has helped me connect with other people in the industry. Live is an incredible course and I look forward to working with them again next semester!

3901L

You guys gotta get better with your lectures. They're highly informative, but you guys tend to go off topic and make the lecture 30 min longer than it needs to be. I love listening to you both talk, but it really eats into our studio time sometimes.

Fall 2019

2175

• 10/10 would have rotisserie chicken at 10:30 am again.

• Despite the issues I had with completing assignments (the subject matter wasn't too difficult it was a variety of issues mainly outside of school) I enjoyed this class greatly. W___ is a great teacher arguably my favorite professor that I've had in my time at this school. I've taken a few of his class just because he makes the subject matter interesting and easy to understand.

• Highly Recommend this class to pretty much everyone in my major, as well as other game design majors. The amount of problem solving and crucial information to how to handle the real world is too good to pass up. I don't believe i've ever had a class that i've wanted more of when the final exams start coming up. Highest recommendation for this class to become mandatory to the game design major

• I hope he enjoys our Christmas present

2175

• Have not learned anything in this course. Most of his "lectures" are flooded with irrelevant anecdotes. The quality of his quizzes and tests are terrible because the answers are completely subjective. Unless you remember and catch everything he says in class, it's impossible to get a perfect score on any of his quizzes or tests because you can't find a majority of his information online. There's simply no possible way to study his material. If the tests and quizzes weren't multiple choice, I can confidently say that all of us would have failed.

• I would have liked there to be more homework assignments throughout the course that reinforce the important concepts that were tested during quizzes and exams.

• All assignments and in class conversations were geared towards game students, felt unengaging as someone who doesn't care as much about making games. We should be allowed to pitch nongame ideas for software for the future.

• Professor is great and knows what he is talking about. Would have him again.

• This is a really good course for students to learn some bits and pieces of the management side of thing in the field of game development.

• A very rewarding course experience. Much was learned from this class and it helped shape my future by helping me realize what I want to pursue in my professional career.

• This class was insanely helpful in figuring out what I would like to do with my career. Turns out, being a producer is not my thing but knowing elements of productions will absolutely help me in my career to better work with producers and project managers.

3901

This class consistently pushes me to be my best. M___ and W__push us to be goal driven individuals, there's no random acts of gamedev in this class. It feels less like a class and more of a serious project, we know what needs to be done, we know how divide up tasks, and we know the definition of done. This is the class I'm so glad I got to take, I've grown so much as a person because of it. It's insane how much I've learned from this. The lectures are so important- we learn about the business and marketing side of games, we understand concepts that most students never get to touch. I'm excited for the next version of live, it can only get better!

The basic conclusion of this is unsurprising, but no less important.

A salient example: “MacNell et al. (2014) collected data from four online sections of a course, two taught by a male instructor and two by a female instructor. Students were assigned randomly to the four sections. The male instructor taught one section using his own identity and switched identities with the female instructor for the other section, and vice versa. 

... Even on measures one would expect to be objective, ratings were lower for perceived female instructors. For instance, graded assignments were returned simultaneously in all four sections, but students reported that the perceived female instructor was less prompt in returning assignments.