Thanks to the COM352 students for contributing a bunch of new pages! I'll be moving these pages into the main area of the wiki soon.

From UMassWiki

The following entries are summaries of anonymous feedback to the teacher, each student received an evaluation written by a peer and compared it with the organization of "pro" and "con" feedback and responses by the teacher, in order to bring the conversation about learning and teaching into more precise view.

example by Steph

I have brought you this far, where will you take us next? :-) steph (COM) 13:55, 4 March 2007 (EST)

English is not a favorite subject

The topics that are discussed in the conversation involve the author’s likes and dislikes of the course as well as the author’s insecurities of being a writer in the class.
The author expresses that English is not their favorite subject, which perhaps has much to do with the fact that they do not feel comfortable writing. It seems as though the author feels more at ease discussing about the subject matter rather than writing about it down on paper. He or she feels that by looking at other students’ writing pieces, it helps him or her better understand the expectations of the assignment. At the same time though, by comparing his or her work to the other students’ works, it discourages him or her from writing.
The teacher understands the author’s problem and addresses it by saying that they should work on the author’s “confidence and voice”.
The teacher also acknowledges that there are components in the class (such as the readings) that makes the course seem uninteresting and “not helpful”. Because the author did not specify or suggest how to enhance the reading experience, the teacher does not know how to alter the reading homeworks.
Annerrs 23:27, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Why is it so quiet?

This student’s reflection on the class focused on two main ideas. The first idea pertains to the students in the class and the interaction between them. The second, and seemingly more important, topic pertains to the wiki and its use.

The author’s opinion of the student body of the class is that even after almost half of a semester, nobody in the class talks or interacts at all. Whenever Steph is not talking, there always seems to be a kind of awkward silence. The suggestion, and it is very good that one is made, is that the level of desire needs to heighten among the students to promote this interaction. That would, therefore, make the class more interesting. The author’s opinion of the wiki is not very high at all. They believe that there is too much focus on the wiki instead of on the actual class material such as writing. They give reasons to support their argument saying that it is too hard to navigate and takes away from the actual class. Again, a suggestion is made that the wiki should be used only for postings and things of that nature as opposed to having the class be run almost completely through it.

The comments on this paper by the teacher vary depending on the argument. The first statement about the class not being interactive enough is received very well. The teacher agrees with the student and gives her own thoughts about the matter making for good conversation between the two. The teacher, however, does not agree with the student’s statements about the class wiki. She gives reasons why she thinks the site is valid and also protects her point of view by asking the student thought-provoking questions. The student/teacher conversation that is happening throughout this paper is very helpful and respectful. That is what can truly make for a better class for everybody. Atshekleton 01:01, 8 March 2007 (EST)

An easy way out

My writer wrote about how he/she hates that we have so much homework in this class than her/his other classes. Of course, the teacher sees it in the opposite way, she/he thinks it's better to have heavy workload. The writer wants more help with writing especially the identiy paper and we all can use a little help and also wants the teacher to explain the activities that we read from the Penguin Handbook. The student appreciates that we are using the wiki since the homework is always there, which means you have no excuse for not doing homeworkPhane88 13:55, 8 March 2007 (EST)

Opinions Of Our Classmates

Anonymously, we were asked our opinions about how the class is going. We then passed the papers in, and in turn, received another peer’s paper. The paper I received, was very clear with their thoughts. They do like the class in general, but there were some things he thought needed work.

This person had a few likes, including the individual learning. They liked the fact that most of the readings were done at home, rather than in class. He thought the grading system was fair and liked how we had the opportunity to rewrite our papers. Also, he states that the material learned in class was very useful.

On the other hand, there were a few things that the writer thought could use improvement. First, he talks about the homework assignments. He thought they were not well explained, and were sometimes confusing. Also, he was not too happy with the Wikki website. Steph suggested that once he gets more familiar with it, the website will be much easier to navigate through.

Overall, it seemed like this person had both good and bad feelings towards the class. I think if we work together with Steph, we can come to an agreement of what works for this class, and what doesn’t. Jessica 22:52, 7 March 2007 (EST)

A very positive perspective on the class

The feedback for the class which I read was very pleased with the class thus far. The anonymous person was happy that, both through relatable stories in the text wrestling handbook and in class discussions designed to improve our writing, they could see how they could drastically improve their own writing. The student also felt that every aspect of the class was working well and had nothing he or she could complain about.

As for me, I feel that the class is too much work. I'm sure its just me because I've had some grossly easy classes and also very little time to do my classwork. I feel that any writing course would be tough for me just because I am a logical thinker. I'm sure I will learn a lot from this class, but I also prefer to learn in a more technical, hands on manner. The identity paper we are working on now it about as "free" a paper as I have ever had to write, my last semester in high school I had an independent study course which consisted of reading a Shakespearian play and writing an essay on it every two weeks, it was a concrete system, very analytical, and much easier for me to come up with a logical point to argue. It seems that I may feel overwhelmed because our assignments are more abstract than the logical, straightforward work I am used to. John? 02:25, 8 March 2007 (EST)

MY OPINION

Although I was not in class the past few days since I was sick, I was was reading what everyone wrote. It seems to me that a common complaint is the work load is a bit much. I agree with this however, writing as a class will naturally be more involoved and require more work. Unlike math or science there is no right or wrong. Thus you do not ever really finish a writing assignment because it always can be changed and manipulated. My personal opinion is I enjoy the class but have been very confused with WIKI. I think today's class will help me. Ksweets 11:57, 8 March 2007 (EST)

TheFlyingScotsman 22:27, 7 March 2007 (EST)

Everyone's main complaint seems to be that we have way too much busy work and that the work we have to do has no connection to what we need work on. Also there should be more movies in the class. Everyone seems to like when discuss as a class, whether it be the whole class or smaller groups, the class sees this as a fair way to interact with you instead of you being a dictator and just telling us whats right and wrong all day. People seem like the wiki for some of its features and enjoy your methods of teaching, saying that they are fair.

class perspective

The major issue encountered by my writer was the wiki. The author likes the wiki for posting homework assignments, but as it grows and changes, there is too much information to keep up with. They also would have liked to have received feedback from the teacher on their major class works as opposed to just from students. It doesn’t discuss why they want this change and the teacher asks why this is. The conversation centers around the teachers inquiry into why the student would like teacher feedback. Dan 12:51, 8 March 2007 (EST)

response to course feedback

This writer briefly overviewed her main criticisms and and praises of this college writing class thus far in the semester. She begins with the things that she thinks could be better about the class. Her main concern is the confusion of the class wiki, and she states that it is confusing. She also finds some of the assignments unclear, but does not elaborate on how they are unclear.

She enjoys the hands-on aspects of the class, specifically when she is able to work with other students in the class. She enjoys when the teacher asks the students questions, but wishes more students would participate. She does not state if she participates, but she probably does if she's criticizing others for not doing it. I would summarize her point of view as someone who enjoys participating in class and interacting with others, and is hoping that others will join her in this to make the class better for herself personally.

The teacher states that she is not alone when she states that the wiki is confusing. Steph asks the writer to ask if she has questions on assignments that she finds confusing, which makes sense, since the writer doesnt elaborate on why or how she finds the assignments confusing. Steph underlines certain words on the writers explanation on why she likes more hands-on experiences, which merely seem to re-emphasize the point that what the writer enjoys is a more interactive classroom. Steph states that the class is working on discussion, and that the writer shouldn't simply state that she wants more class discussion without contributing to it herself. Steph's point of view seems to be one of mild frustration with the class of participation, since it seems from the tone of her reply that many people wrote about how they wanted more class discussions, yet they remain to be very interactive, with only a few people participating. She also seems to be trying to learn from the feedback with her statement that many find the wiki confusing, perhaps she will change something about it due to the feedback.

Andy

Class Perspectives

The author of the anonymous feedback given to Steph last week has two main points in her analysis. First off, she believes that Steph is a great teacher and enjoys the class. However, from his/her point of view, there is an overload of homework which makes college life more difficult due to the fact that next year they are taking off from college and the effort put into the class is not as high as it could/would be if college was actually enjoyable for him/her. More concerns include the issue of individual-group activities. Instead of knowing the class as a whole, he/she only knows certain people (and rarely names) because they work together in small clusters, rather than as a whole- as a class. If this was the case he/she would know people more, and (guessing) would be prone to be more opinionated in class discussions, waiving the fear of shyness/anonymity. To add to the “wish list” of sorts, he/she also regrets that we don’t read short stories or interesting topics and debate them as was done extensively in most high schools.

What this person does enjoy about the class is, first off, the wiki. He/she considers it to be a great resource and once again notes her appreciation for Steph being such a great teacher. The concept of a conversation between these two people, the anonymous author and Steph, is, however, perplexing. How can it be such when one doesn’t get the chance to see what the other said? In any case, Steph’s response to this feedback mainly revolved around the question of how she can get the author to eventually enjoy/become more involved in the class with time and enthusiasm, seemingly pointlessly for the author will never find out what Steph said back. Tom 10:48, 8 March 2007 (EST)