Student Evaluations
Click here for a pdf
At UMass, students are asked to rate my performance as Teaching Assistant in 5 areas on a “Poor, Average, Good, or Excellent” scale, and to add their own comments. Of all the students who responded, in 9 sections (three each per course I TAed), all but two gave me “Good” or “Excellent” ratings on all questions. One student gave me “Average” ratings, and one gave me “Good” ratings, except for a “Poor” on “Fairness of Grading” — although I didn't have complete control over grading and I no longer have access to the grades, so I’m not sure why. But otherwise, mostly “Excellent” ratings, and the remainder “Good.”
Here are all the specific responses, where students went to the trouble to write comments. Now you might say, “students only bother to write something when they have something good to say.” I don’t know about that, but for what it’s worth, these are the comments. The courses were: Spring ’11, US Environmental History; Fall ’10, US History Survey, Colonial to 1865; Fall ’09, US History Survey, 1865 to present.
Rating and comment:
Question: “Instructor Welcomes Student Viewpoints”
“Excellent—Very understanding and accepting of different perspectives.” (Spring ’11)
“Excellent—Does a good job of asking our opinions on topics.” (Spring ’11)
“Excellent—Always lets people give their opinion. Accepts the views in a way that makes you feel good when you speak up.” (Spring ’11)
“Excellent—Always open and understanding. (Spring ’11)
“Excellent—Gives assignments that allow for opinionated responses.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—He had a lot of insight for this subject and when we spoke he’d listen.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—Dan is constantly trying to spark interest in conversation with his students.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Always interacting, taking all opinions and evaluating them.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Always welcomes new information from students and presents great counter-arguments to get us thinking.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Mr. Allosso always encourages us to express our opinions.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Dan always asks us what we think of the material and he even had us debate the atomic bomb once.” (Fall ’09)
Question: “Fairness of Grading”
“Excellent—Always gives reasons for grade.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—I’ve always believed my work to be graded fairly.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Graded on quality even if he did not agree with opinion.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—I work extremely hard on my essays and am very pleased with my grades on them.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Takes time to write down improvements and comments on every paper.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—I’ve never had an issue with the grades I’ve gotten. When I wrote a B paper I knew it and that’s what grade I got.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—For my papers, TA always went through it, making corrections, comments and suggestions.” (Fall ’09)
Question: “Helpfulness of Comments”
“Excellent—Very clear and helpful.” (Spring ’11)
“Excellent—Always gave useful feedback.” (Spring ’11)
“Excellent—Especially in exams and quizzes” (Fall ’10)
“Good—Always responds to emails or stays after class. Thank you.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—Made it so there was room for improvement.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—My papers always came back with useful comments and helpful hints on how to make my next one better.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Cleared up confusion about lectures and got us thinking about new ideas.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Great feedback from TA.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Dan’s comments on the exams and the papers helped me improve for the next time.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—The comments I received were useful because they told me what was good about my papers and what I could improve.” (Fall ’09)
Question: “Quality of Discussions”
“Excellent—He created an energetic environment to discuss topics that had not been developed in the lecture.” (Spring ’11)
“Excellent—TA was amazing!! Very thorough and clear. Always available for advice or to meet.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—Always knew background info which was very helpful.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—Covered all the info that the teacher missed.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Dan always inspired conversation and cleared up points of confusion.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Really cleared up confusion from lectures and got us ready for exams.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Only learned anything from the TA.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—We discuss more than what is assigned.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—TA did very well. Most discussions are useless. This one taught us way more than the lectures.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—I usually hate discussion sections but I feel like I learned more in discussion than lecture itself.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—I learned a lot of the material in discussion rather than lecture because the TA explained the material better.” (Fall ’09)
Question: “Overall Rating of Discussion”
“Excellent—I liked the ‘modern’ approach to the discussion. It was a nice mix-up from the lecture. Good job.” (Spring ’11)
“Excellent—Dan was a good TA because he was straight to the point. The information he gave us was necessary and informative. He also had very accessible office hours and was willing to help during those times.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—Dan is a great teaching assistant. He is informative and very intelligent and engaging.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—Very good at explaining all of the course material, clearing up much of confusion and preparing us for exams and quizzes. Approachable and easy to contact for help.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—Helped clarify many things only briefly mentioned in class.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—TA brought a lot of clarity to points made in lecture. A lot of lecture is hard to get it all down.” (Fall ’10)
“Excellent—Without Dan probably wouldn’t do well in this class. Excellent TA.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—I loved every discussion with Dan; he made the class interesting and worthwhile.” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—Glad I was in your section! I learned a lot!” (Fall ’09)
“Excellent—I loved coming to discussion every week.” (Fall ’09)
