Course evaluation packages will soon be sent to your professors and instructors who will bring them to class between July 8 and 19, 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 Directors 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.
And 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 finally uploaded into a database that the Associate Dean, Teaching uses to inform course improvement efforts. The data is also 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 help improve their teaching. Your faculty and department use your feedback to make tenure and promotion decisions. Your feedback also 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,
Bjorn Dawson, Course Critiques Director
Joshua Kalpin, Course Critiques Director
Susan Patchett, Course Critiques Director
Gordon Stubley, Associate Dean, Teaching
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