A couple of weeks ago, willing volunteers (namely your Course Critiques director and whomever else he was able to recruit to help out) met to prepare the course evaluation packages – nearly 300 of them containing an average of 90 questionnaires each. The packages were sent to professors and instructors, who brought them to class. Student representatives distributed the questionnaires in class, collected them when they were completed, and delivered them to the EngSoc office. This week, more student volunteers will meet to prepare the packages for computerized scanning; removing the extra golf pencils and blank questionnaires, making sure all the sheets face the same direction, and getting all the packages over to the scanner in MC.
It’s a process that has been repeated every semester for over 40 years. And yes, it’s quite a big undertaking, but it’s one we believe is well worth it.
After the packages have been scanned (but only after course grades have been posted in Quest), the data will be used to prepare reports for department chairs, and the original completed questionnaires will be distributed to the corresponding instructors for their own teaching development. The electronic data will be uploaded into a database that the Associate Dean, Teaching uses to inform course improvement efforts. The data will also be uploaded to the online Course Critiques site (https://www.eng.uwaterloo.ca/critiques/) so that you and future students may review the results.
Your thoughtful and candid responses to course evaluation survey questions have a big impact. Your instructors rely on your feedback to improve their teaching. Your faculty and department use your feedback to make tenure and promotion decisions. And the Associate Dean, Teaching will use your feedback to help 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,
Gordon Stubley Dushanth Seevaratnam
Associate Dean, Teaching Course Critiques Director
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