Tips, tutorials, and commentary on pedagogy, productivity, and technology in higher education.

Tag Archives: evaluation

Join the discussion: “Grading 2.0: Evaluation in the Digital Age” on HASTAC.org

November 17, 2009 in Pedagogy by Prof. Hacker
[Editor's Note: This is a guest post by John Jones (no relation!), who is an assistant instructor at UT-Austin and one of the hosts of the HASTAC Forum on Grading 2.0. -- JBJ] One of the primary goals of teaching is to prepare students for life outside the classroom, either by providing them with job-specific skills [...]

Getting the Most out of Your Evaluations

November 16, 2009 in Pedagogy, Productivity by Brian Croxall

It's that time of the semester again (or will be shortly): the moment when we ask our students to tell us what we do well or at least what they think we do well. This post explains two tried and true approaches for stimulating better (and more useful!) participation from your students.

Defending RateMyProfessors.com

November 12, 2009 in Pedagogy by Alex Jarvis

In this Profhacker Post, undergraduate student Alex Jarvis dissects the pros and cons of using RateMyProfessors.com. Is it a useful tool, or innately immature?

Grade Keeping Programs

October 5, 2009 in Productivity, Products by Billie Hara

One of the hardest things about teaching is the evaluation of student work. The next hardest thing about teaching is keeping track of students' grades. Educators today have many effective ways to track student progress. Some professors use the the old skool method of keeping a gradebook (or a piece of paper) that lists students' grades. Other educators use Excel spreadsheets to keep track of students and their grades. The technologically savvy instructors use course management systems (CMS), WebCT, Blackboard, or eCollege, as they have built-in grade keeping programs that link assignments with grades (percentages or points).

Mid-Term Teaching Evaluations

September 25, 2009 in Pedagogy by Billie Hara

It’s almost midterm, a time to gauge just how well our students are learning the material we are teaching them. But what about our performance? Who is evaluating how we are doing, if we’re being effective, or if students are learning? Mid-term teaching evaluations can be a wonderful tool to gauge how students are perceiving the course, the material, and our teaching.

Grading Differently

August 11, 2009 in Pedagogy by Brian Croxall
I wanted to draw attention to some of the comments in Jason’s post on incorporating learning goals into one’s syllabus. Bill Wolff writes briefly about his experience using the Learning Record, a system for evaluating students’ development over a long period of time (i.e., a semester). John Jones then provided a link to video of a [...]