History Department Response to Student Feedback
HSTY3085/3095 - The Celtic World (2004)

Unit Coordinator: Dr Lynette Olson

‘The Celtic World’ students were in my opinion very kind in
their evaluations, which numerically rated the unit more highly than
either of the above units. I would have been more critical of my
teaching here, as I was by the time of the week that this unit met
thoroughly tired because of a very uneven teaching load this year.
Perhaps they liked the extent to which they carried the seminar, or very
likely Celts are just very attractive to teach and learn about. One
problem mentioned was that with the seminar paper due after the end of
classes all of the feedback came afterwards. I did begin the
second-semester seminar ‘The Celtic World Revisited’ by asking students
who had done the first- semester unit to read over their papers as well
as my comments and to give a short talk about them to the class this
semester and take questions afterwards, which worked well. After I read
the evaluations I spoke to the students about this problem and discussed
some ways to improve feedback, but next year I will be sure to provide
some earlier by asking for a brief point-form outline at the time of
seminar presentations for assessment, comment and suggestions for
improvement before they write their papers.