Student Evaluations

Introduction to Philosophy, Fall ’17:  OVERVIEW,  and breakdown

This evaluation gave me confidence that students were appreciating the overall design of my course and my teaching style. It led me to realize that improving the quality and participation in discussion was something I could work on.

Introduction to Philosophy, Summer ’18: OVERVIEW,  and breakdown

This evaluation really impressed on me the importance of setting clear and public learning objectives. I was also led to reflect on ways I could make my classroom more inclusive and welcoming for foreign students. 

Social and Political Philosophy, Spring ’18: Overview, and breakdown

This evaluation from a rather small class gave me confidence that my passion for the subject area paid off. A student emphasized that my course design need to incorporate incentives to attend and participate in discussions.

Logic, Fall ’18: OVerview, and breakdown

This was the first time I taught logic, and a slight dip in my evaluations reflected my coming to grips with the way to teach this very different subject. It spurred me to reflect on how to best approach a class mixed in terms of class level and background in formal vs discursive disciplines. I responded in Spring ’19 by preparing more in-class exercises, as well as a more extensive entrance survey to gauge more carefully the aims and backgrounds of the students and create study teams accordingly.

Logic, Spring ’19 overview, with Overview and breakdown

My efforts to utilize the expertise of the different students in class by forming balanced teams to work on problems in class, and more detailed preparation contributed to great improvements in my evaluations.

Business Ethics, Summer ’19: overview and breakdown

This course was co-taught. Evaluations, especially of the course overall were lower than normal. From the written comments it appears that some students struggled with the theoretical readings. In future I intend to provide more scaffolding for the philosophical readings in the syllabus, and highlight for the students the most important passages in the theoretical readings.

Environmental Nexus, Fall ’19 (Preceptor) Numeric with comments

The students especially appreciated the discussions, and office hours. One student mentioned that they would have welcomed more accountability for doing the readings. In 2020 I provided this kind of accountability through requiring reading reflections posted to a forum.