And the consequences were

Last semester, I took a bunch of shortcuts in my teaching—for reasons which should be obvious. I didn't read my student evaluations until today. So:

Reducing my office hours, from the four to six per week typical in my department to just three, in time slots carefully chosen so as to maximize likelihood of student utilization (hint: the day before homework is due), was fine. They still thought I was "extremely" available.

Now, that reduction needs to be put into context (and all you folks at research universities can just start snickering now): I announce the time of the next few office hours at the beginning of every class, and give at least a week's warning of any cancellations. I add an extra two hours the week of an exam. And I also had regular IM hours, which were much beloved by the few students who took advantage of them. Note: on the internet, no one can tell you're nursing.

(I should write a real entry on how to do the IM hours right, actually; the Chronicle piece last year was such unnecessary scaremongering.)

On the other hand, they were unhappy about the grading of non-exam work. Which, for the first time, I had allowed to be done entirely by people other than me.

Also, some of the responses to "difficulty," "enthusiasm," and "organization" questions show they knew I was less engaged. Which wasn't so much that I was putting in fewer hours, but that I was recycling as many course materials as possible. Sometimes the lectures recyled from spring '04 didn't quite match the projects from fall '03 or the exams from spring '02.

Overall: my numbers didn't go up, but they didn't go down either. And I've been here long enough, and taught all of last semester's courses enough times, that there wasn't anything shocking on the evaluations (yes, I should have given them more time for that project assignment, yes, my voice can be too quiet, but my enthusiasm for the subject is deep and, on good days, contagious, yes, you would have learned more if you hadn't fallen asleep in class, and thanks for saying so). I can remember the traumas of my first few semesters of evaluations so vividly; I feel old just getting useful feedback from them. It's just part of the job, now.

Comments

[Kate]

It was interesting to see what the students noticed, and what you still were clearly succeeding at. I'd LOVE to hear how to do IM office hours right. I've done some online chat sessions to review material before an exam, and got good reviews for them, but would like to incorporate them into my class even more.