After 16 weeks of homework, projects, quizzes and tests, the semester is coming to a close and finals are appearing quicker than you can shuffle through your flash cards.But finals aren’t the only looming deadline this time of year. Course evaluations — forms that gauge your opinion on the success of your instructor and format of the course — are due Dec. 9 and they are nothing to take lightly.
The information in course evaluations can create more change than you think. The comments in the evaluations can help to improve the instructor’s ability to teach, while also giving their superiors more information on their performance.
Your verdict on the effectiveness of their teaching methods might be part of the information considered if your instructor is being nominated for tenure, a promotion or a salary increase.
Throughout these 16 weeks, you’ve probably spent anywhere from 16 to 50 hours with your instructor — depending on the number of credits your course was worth. This makes you a valuable source in discussing your instructor’s performance and ability to teach, interact with students and reinterpret the course material in various ways for different learning types.
The University of Idaho was ranked 165th out of 1,400 in the nation by the U.S. News in the 2013 edition of the Best Colleges and National Universities for the value of the education for the price of tuition.
We can take pride that our university made the list above universities with higher budgets, larger faculties, newer facilities and in states with larger populations, but we should still do everything we can to find and make every improvement possible. Course evaluations are part of the improvement process.
By spending only 15 minutes of your time filling out the course evaluations, you’ll help build better teachers and a better university. So in the midst of studying for exams that will earn your degree and help you achieve your dreams, take a few minutes to help the institution that made it possible.
–CR