Course evaluation packages will soon be sent to your professors and instructors, who have been asked to bring them to class between November 11 and 22, 2013. Student representatives will be called upon to distribute one questionnaire to each student in each class, collect them when they are completed, and deliver them to the EngSoc office. Your Course Critiques Director will work with student volunteers to prepare the packages for computerized scanning and processing. It’s a process that has been repeated every semester for over 40 years.
Yes, it’s quite a big undertaking, but it’s one we believe is well worth it.
On the day after grades are due, a package is mailed to each course instructor with a summary of the numerical data as well as the original completed questionnaires so that they can read the feedback you’ve written on the back. The numerical data is also used to prepare summaries for department chairs and entered into a database that the Associate Dean, Teaching uses to inform course improvement efforts. The data is also posted online so that you and future students may review the results. And, new this term, you can view ten-year data trends for the summative question along with some background information on the faculty Student Course Evaluations page (https://uwaterloo.ca/engineering/student-course-evaluations).
Your thoughtful and candid responses to course evaluation survey questions have a big impact. Instructors rely on your feedback to help improve their teaching. The faculty and departments use your feedback to make tenure and promotion decisions. And your feedback helps the Associate Dean, Teaching to gauge how effectively our teaching supports our students.
Thank you for your time, your feedback, and, most importantly, for your continued support of this longstanding and valued process.
Sincerely,
Clarisse Schneider, Course Critiques Director
Gordon Stubley, Associate Dean, Teaching
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