Reflection of midterm evaluation

I released midterm evaluation last Wednesday. By today, 23 out of 30 students filled out this evaluation form. Underneath form is the summary of their responses about class and instructor:

Class
Like/Enjoy	Dislike/Not Enjoy
Work with Photoshop (9) Hands-on practices (4) Techniques and skills that students can use in the future (4) Create website from sketch through Dreamweaver (3) Instructional powerpoints (3) Small projects (2) Interactive class	Fast pace (hard to keep up with) (5) Lack of basics/background introduction (3) No teaching assistant (2) Some skills are not relevant (2) Chatting students (talk policy could be more strict) (2) Strict attendance policy Group work
Instructor
Strength	Need Improve
Very knowledgeable in subject area/Clearly knows what he is teaching (12) Always willing to help (9) Very patient (5) Can usually answer any questions students have (3) Never hesitates to go back and re-explain a concept or procedure if someone does not understand (2) Good at explaining class content (2) Stay after class to make sure students understand the material	Go over the course materials/instruction too fast (3) Hard to completely understand the spoken instruction (3) Not clear on what is required to students

From students responses and reflections, we can see students value the skills and techniques that they can use in their future career and daily life. In contrast, students don't like the skills that are not relevant. This is what we need to consider when we re-design this course for following semesters. We need to make sense all the knowledge points covered in class. If the relevance of a certain knowledge point can not be identified, we need to remove it.

Some of the students argued that the pace of class was too fast, and it was difficult for them to keep up with the instruction. There were several factors that might lead to this situation:

1. Some students had little technology background. They barely knew any computer program before taking this course. They might have difficulty to keep up with the pace. At the same time, other students who had more prior knowledge or related background didn't have this issue. I might need to spend a little more time on explaining the basics for students who have less prerequisite knowledge. And for some of the key points, where it is easy for the students to get lost or confused, I need to slower the pace and elaborate more.
2. Some students were chatting while I was lecturing. Although I encouraged my students to communicate and learn from each other, it was not good time to do that while I was providing instruction. Maybe emphasizing on talking policy could help with this situation as well.

My class has 30 students, which makes it is impossible for me to answer every students' question during the lab time, especially when my students are on very complex tasks. Moreover, when I was presenting, some students who had difficulties to keep up with the instruction would raise their hands, which was also encouraged because immediate feedback would be extremely helpful in hands-on activities. However, when it happened too frequent, the pace of class was broken. And other students would start to chat. And I had to spend more time to have them back on track. Students suggested that a teaching assistant might be very helpful.

Some of the statements about class attendance policy were not clearly defined, which led to some students' misunderstanding. We need to change some wording of the syllabus and better clarify the class attendance policy.

I also need to improve my presenting skills (better pronunciation and louder voice ) to make sure all the students can understand my instruction. Sometimes, I might have skipped some steps, which were obvious or self-explanatory. However, not all the students are at the same skill level. Students who are at the lower level need to be considered more.