End of Year Student Evaluations of Me

Previously I posted the mid-year student and parent evaluations of me. At the end of the year I gave a slightly different (and shorter) survey to my students. This was given to them after they completed the final exam, was optional, and it was during finals week, so I only got 20 responses (out of 27 in the class, not too bad). (I didn't give a formal parent survey at the end of the year - not sure why, just didn't get to it, although some parents responded to my final email with some feedback.)

Here are the results from the 20 students who completed the survey (with their names removed).

Overall, I'm reasonably happy with these results. Several students mentioned they felt the pace was a bit too fast, and I would agree with that (the usual problem of too much required curriculum, not enough time - I tried to balance it well, but didn't always succeed).

I'd still like to find a way to get more detailed feedback from students at the end of the year, preferably with a face-to-face conversation as well as an online form. But there just isn't the class time to do that before the final exam, and then it's difficult to convince students to come in on their own time during finals week (or in the summer) and do that.

What are some ways you've tried to get better feedback?

Student and Parent Evaluations of Me

I just posted this on my Algebra Class Blog, but I thought I'd share it here as well. I offered the students and parents in my Algebra class the opportunity to fill out a short evaluation of me at the end of the semester. This was optional, and including their name was optional. So far I have 15 student responses and 11 parent responses (out of 27 in the class).

Here's the post:

While you can still submit your evaluation of me (and your parents can submit their evaluation of me here), here are the results so far from the ones you've submitted. Note that I've slightly edited them. As you may recall, you could include your name if you wished (11 out of the 15 submitted did), so I edited that column out. Similarly, your parents could include their name (10 out of the 11 submitted did), which I edited out, and some of them included identifying information in their comments, so I edited those a bit as well (for example, changing a name to "StudentName").

Note that these are copies of the evaluations (so I could edit them), so if you or your parents submit additional evaluations using the links above they will not immediately appear below (although I may copy over the results eventually).

So, what do you think, anything we can learn from these?

Student Feedback


 Parent Feedback

What Are The Keys to Measuring the Effectiveness of Individual Teachers and Principals?

Colorado passed SB191 (pdf) which requires the state and school district to come up with new (and presumably better) ways to evaluate teachers and administrators. Here is the question that my district is currently trying to answer:

What do you believe are the keys to measuring the effectiveness of individual teachers and principals?

I put the question out on Twitter and got quite a few good responses, but I thought I'd post it here as well to make it easier to post a more-than-140-character-at-a-time response. Please keep in mind this is not theoretical, my district has to come up with and implement this plan, and it will be used for evaluating teachers and administrators.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.