Positive comments

Comments complimenting structure of the unit or course overall.

X 55

Appreciated handing in weekly questions

X 5

Appreciated wide variety of essay questions

X 6

Appreciated choice of tutorial readings

X 5

Appreciated choice of sit-down and take-home exams

X 3

Appreciated speedy marking of essays and/or helpfulness of comments

X 7

Appreciated annotated proposal/ bibliography exercise

X 1

Appreciated having access to ppt slides, lecture recordings, and lecture outlines

X 6

Appreciated group work in tutorials

X 2

Appreciated tutor and/or tutorial discussions

X 7

Appreciated website finding aid

X 1

Suggestions for improvement

Response

Make lectures downloadable

X1

I make my lecture recordings available on our WebCT site in streaming format for one month. I have no intention of recording lectures as podcasts. I want students either to come to lectures, or listen to the recordings right away. Enabling students to download the lectures would undermine this goal.

Gap between proposal feedback  and essays submission was too short.

X 7

Thanks for the feedback. I’ll ensure a longer time between assignments next time.

Please let us know about debates in tutorials ahead of time

X 1

Ok. I’ll keep this in mind.

Tutorial size was to big

X 5

I’m very sorry about this. I can certainly understand students’ frustration over the size of tutorials. Unfortunately, the school sets the maximum size of tutorials, so I have little say over this aspect of the course.

Remove counterfactual readings

X 5

Noted. I’ll be altering the readings for this tutorial next time.  

Make ppt slides available on WebCT

X 2

The ppts were made available!

Did not like essay plan

X 10

In light of students’ comments on this aspect of the course, I’ll consider setting a short essay rather than an essay plan next time.

Feedback could be improved

X 8

I’ve taken note of students’ complaints about feedback received on their essays and will modify my instructions to graders accordingly.

“I would have appreciated a printed course outline”

X 2

Come to the first lecture; download a copy off the history department website or the course website; take a hard copy from the envelope on my office door. Every avenue was provided to give you a printed course outline.

More movies

X 1

One day I’m going to organize a parallel (non-compulsory) Civil War movie viewing session each fortnight for interested students. All I lack is time. If any student in futures wants to help organize such sessions, just say the word.

More primary sources in the readings

X 2

Each time I teach this unit, I modify the mix of secondary and primary sources. I’ll do so again in second semester 2012.

Longer lecture notes

Or “more thorough powerpoints, more summaries on slides”

X 3

My lecture notes provide a detailed skeleton of the lecture, along with some context on the topic being discussed. I have no plan to offer more detailed notes. Students should be prepared to come to lectures and take their own notes. I will, however, improve the powerpoints for next time, adding additional content.

More general US history before the war to contextualize

“make timeline available”

X 1

I start this unit with four lectures on the period leading up to the war in order to provide this context. In future, I’ll start these lectures with a broad brush outline of the period we’re studying, so that students feel better oriented.  I’ll also provide a timeline.

“We did not get back the answers to the questions we asked in class.”

X 1

True. As I noted in lectures and tutorials, the point of getting students to submit weekly questions on the tutorial readings is to produce active rather than passive readers. I want students to approach the readings thinking ‘what can I ask of this reading,’ instead of ‘what facts does this reading relay?’ If you frame the questions yourself, you’ll presumably be much more likely to seek out the answers yourself as well. My providing you with all the answers would defeat the goal of creating active learners.

Set a text-book for each week alongside weekly articles.

X 1

I’ve considered this option, but decided that this would make the set readings too long for most students. However, I have provided suggestions for textbooks that students can read, alongside the tutorial readings. I highly recommend that students complete such reading.

More military history

X 3

I scatter the lectures with military history. But it’s true: my Civil War unit is primarily a social, political, cultural take on the war and its aftermath. Frankly, if I included more military history I’d lose the interests of the vast majority of students. I think the balance is about right, particularly given that I allow students to focus on military aspects of the war in their essay topics.

Less military history

X 1

Just goes to show that you can’t please all of the people.

More historiographical discussion in lectures

X 1

Most of my lectures are, in fact, addressed to aspects of current historiography on the Civil War, and Reconstruction – something I make clear at the beginning of each lecture.

Less political history

X 1

I disagree. You can’t understand the civil war without spending substantial time on political history. 

More social history

X 2

Noted.

Did not like tute or tutor

X 5

There’s not much I can do about this now, except to advise future students who are reading these comments to come and see me if they are having a problems in their tutorials during the year. I’ll try and help you work something out.

Introduction to tutorial readings needed

X 2

Ok. This is a good piece of advice and I think would help tutorial discussions. I’ll add an intro to some of the tutorial readings  next time I teach the course.

Needed clearer explanation of what a ‘take home exam’ was

X 1

Ok. I’ll provide this explanation next time.

Want to be able to print off ppt slides

X 2

You can do this. All of the powerpoints were available on our WebCT site

Wanted lessons on how to make an argument in an essay.

Wanted more help on essay writing

X 2

I gladly offer such advice. On numerous occasions, I advised students to come and see me during office hours if they wanted help with essay writing. I offered to organize additional times. I also offered to read and comment on drafts of student’s essays, provided they organized an appointment at least a week before the due date. Only a single student took me up on this offer (and received an HD, by the way). Students need to take advantage of opportunities that are available.

Repeat key names and points in lectures

X 1

Noted. I will try to do more of this in future.

More material on reserve

X 1

Unfortunately, I put the maximum amount of books on reserve that I’m allowed to have for one class.

More group work

X 1

Noted

More time on reconstruction

X 1

I agree. It would be great if we had time to do a whole semester on Reconstruction; it’s such a fascinating period. I’ve long been meaning to add another lecture on Reconstruction, in addition to the three I already provide. But when one topic gets added, another topic has to go. In any case, I’ll reassess the spread of lectures next time I teach the unit and see what I can do.

More on Southern history

X 1

Again, I agree with this comment. I have plans to modify two lectures to balance the northern bias of several of my lectures.

Wanted longer essays, additional assessment, or more tutorial reading

X 10

It’s heart-warming to know that there are students out there who want to do more work. I’d love to accommodate you. Unfortunately, for a 6 credit point unit taught in a lecture/tutorial format, the faculty-wide standard is 4,500 words of assessment. I can’t alter this rule. 

I currently set 50 to 100 pages of tutorial reading per week. I’ve found that if I set more reading, the majority of students won’t do any reading at all, and our tutorial discussions will suffer as a result. But I urge students to do reading beyond the set texts; and I provide suggestions for additional readings.  

Shorter tute readings

X 3

I consider the length of the tutorial readings in this unit to be ideal.

Didn’t want sign up for essay

X 1

In very large classes like this one, asking students to sign up for an essay question is a way to limit the strain on library resources.  It’s unavoidable.

Didn’t want to sign up for essay in the first week, before knowing anything about the subject

X 2

Ok. Noted. If I ask students to sign up for questions next time, I’ll wait a few weeks to do so.

Make relevance of primary source material clearer

X 1

In a history unit, the relevance of primary source material should be abundantly clear.

Didn’t like set essay questions

X 1

I provided 42 essay questions (along with suggested readings to accompany each question), in addition to allowing students to formulate their own questions, so this comment is unreasonable.

Wanted oral presentation

X 1

I haven’t found oral tutorial presentations particularly useful in this unit. The majority of students complain if I set them. It tends to be the case that one student talks while other students sit passively. What I will trial in future is a system of making two students responsible each week for leading discussions.

Put Lincoln douglas in second week

X 1

Ok. I agree.