It is not solely because of the (considerable) height difference between us that I look up to my brother. It is also because he is three years older than I am and thereby has been taking many steps in life before I do. Upon reaching adulthood, for example, he went studying at a University, he joined a student association, and he became active in various committees at his University. Somehow, these examples all represented footsteps I wanted to follow in when I turned eighteen, although this was not always easy.
Taking his activities within University committees as an example, my big brother generally participated in multiple committees at the same time whereas I only managed to join two during my entire studies. Fortunately for me, however, I could contribute to one of them for almost seven years in a row (thus also after finishing my studies), and this allowed me to develop various skills and build a network from which I still benefit today.
About this committee, our goal was to coordinate the evaluation of courses by students based on which the quality of teaching could be improved. At that time, we were quite efficient which was largely fueled by the active attitude of the participating students. To illustrate the latter, around eighty to hundred percent of the students filled out the evaluation forms we gave them. Based on these response rates, the quality of feedback given by the students, and notably also our workflow to translate the students’ input to concrete improvements, the faculty board actually decided to use our committee as blueprint for a faculty-wide course evaluation scheme. A great compliment indeed. Implementation of this scheme, however, marked the end of our evaluation committee since it was decided to move our tasks over to the so-called ‘program committee’.
Fast-forwarding eight years to today, I just attended a meeting of this program committee during which the evaluation of my course was discussed. All in all, I am very happy with the feedback given by the students which allows me to make clear-cut changes that will undoubtedly lead to a better course in the future. Just to give you an idea of such changes, I will (do my best to) leave more time for self-study between the last lecture and the exam, I will (try to) change the order of the different lectures to create a more logical sequence of topics, and I will improve my introductory lecture in order to better highlight the coherence between the different lectures. I must stress, however, that everything related to course scheduling is rather challenging due to various reasons, yet I promise to do the utmost to realize all of the proposed changes.
Besides happiness, I also experienced a ‘missed opportunity’ feeling today which arose from the fact that only nineteen of the thirty-four students filled out the evaluation form. The corresponding response rate (of fifty-six percent) would have actually been considered as alarmingly low from the perspective of my committee work a decade ago. In today’s reality, however, this rate is quite high as compared to other course evaluations carried out within our institute over the past few years. In fact, I was told to be happy with today’s results.
Needless to say, I cannot possibly be completely happy, at least not until response rates of eighty to hundred percent become a rule rather than an exception. In other words, I identified a new mission for myself, and my first order of action is…
…trying to revive the good old evaluation committee.
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