I believe every teacher should teach under an impression that everyone can see live what is happening in his or her classroom (that is why I support the “Open Classroom” Initiative). I also believe that every teacher should do what I do on this page, i.e. make his or her evaluation public (tried to start such a club but so far failed :( ).
Nowadays, everyone can go to http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ and read what students think about their professors.
According to the website, currently (September 1st, 2015) out of hundreds of my former students only 24 left some feedback (although the page shows only 20 – something is wrong with the way the site operates):
<=> 8
<=> 4
<=> 8
If you study evaluations students give to their professors, you find that some professors consistently get low scores, some professors consistently get high scores, but some professors (including me) consistently get opposite scores. That is why I am always open to my students about my evaluations (check In this video ).
Unfortunately, due to technical issues the sound is not very good, so below is a partial transcript of the soundtrack.
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These are the actual quotes from some evaluations from the past.
“Good pace”. “Too fast”.
“Funny”. “Boring”.
I do not know who wrote it, it was anonymous, but those are actual quotes.
…
“You can tell he wants his students to understand and do well”.
“Never felt like he cared for his students”.
Two people was watching the same person saying same words, doing same things, and had absolute opposite perception of that.
What does it tell us?
…
The lesson is, that for some of you I am a good match, and for some – not.
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I always tell students, there are no ideal teachers, and there is no ideal way of learning or teaching. Different people learn differently; different teachers teach differently, and – like you may not like a movie or a dish your friends like – you also may not like an instructor other people find likable. But if, anyway, you are interested in what my BU students had recently said about me, click here (2013) or here (2014) and here; this is the statistics from another university where I also teach a class.
I have not been keeping the files of all my evaluations, but I keep adding the one I have.
Some of the latest evaluations are here (BU), then here (BU), and here; here (BU), and here (BU_PhyII).
End of a spring semester evaluation; when I compare my data with the average over the college, it makes me be more confident in the way I teach.
BU, Summer I, 2018, PY105 student evaluations.
BU, Summer I, 2018, PY106 student evaluations.
Summer I, 2019, PY105 student evaluations
Summer I, 2019, PY106 student evaluations
