Many faculty don’t expect to learn a lot from those end-of-course student comments. Students don’t write much, don’t always think carefully about what they write, and have been known to make ugly comments. Low expectations would seem to be justified, and that’s unfortunate. Because they’ve experienced our teaching firsthand, students know best whether we’ve been clear, provided enough examples, made reasonable demands and offered adequate help. Are there some ways we might improve the caliber of their written comments? Would any of these options help?
