CTL Survey Results

Fall 2024

A mid-semester formative evaluation (MSFE) was conducted by the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL). Below is a summary of responses from students to CTL survey given in the CH1211 Chemistry I 1:50 PM class on 9/13/24.

The document I recevied is reproduced verbatim below.

Mid-Semester Formative Evaluation Report for CHEM 1211: Chemistry I

Thank you for inviting me to talk with your students as part of this Mid-Semester Formative Evaluation (MSFE) process. In what follows, I have listed for your review the main points gathered from your students’ written and verbal feedback. This document reports student perceptions based on the structure of my conversation with your students. Together we will discuss your students’ feedback and consider ways you might respond. Our goal will be to identify both changes you will make in response to your students’ feedback and explanations you can give students to help them understand your teaching choices.

Discussing the results of this Mid-Semester Formative Evaluation with your class is an important part of the process as it demonstrates to them that you value their input and care about their learning. In fact, research shows that closing the feedback loop with your students will positively impact their learning and performance in your course as well as their overall perceptions of your instruction and the course as a whole.

What’s working well in this class? What are the strengths of the class and which aspects are having a positive impact on your learning?

Students responded to this question in small groups and were asked to be as specific as possible, noting disagreement among group members where relevant. Students have identified the following strengths in your teaching:

Instructor

Students appreciated your talking with them and your interaction with them in the class. They also appreciated you investing time during office hours to resolve their queries.

He’s passionate about teaching/chemistry (26 students, 8 groups)
Brings energy (14 students, 5 groups)
Gives his own time to support us (8 students, 2 groups)
Mr. Dornshuld is a good teacher that explains well and is clearly well informed (2 students, 1 group)
Puts a lot of effort into the class (4 students, 1 group)
Makes class interactive (5 students, 2 groups). Gives us opportunities to get involved in class but doesn’t force it (4 students, 1 group)
Knows a lot of chemistry (4 students, 1 group)
Overall great teacher (2 students, 1 group)
I think he cares a lot about his students and their success (9 students, 3 groups) despite all he says about our education is all in our own hands (2 students, 1 group)
He is very empathetic towards us and relates to us (3 students, 1 group)
Always available to respond to questions whether during office hours or circle in (2 students, 1 group)
Very helpful in office hours (3 students, 1 group)
Responsive to emails (3 students, 1 group)
Approachable (4 students, 1 group)
Good at taking feedback and accountability (3 students, 1 group)
Positive personality (3 students, 1 group)
Funny (22 students, 8 groups)
He is chatty and sassy. Adds to the learning experience (4 students, 1 group)
He is charismatic and entertaining (2 students, 1 group)
Well prepared for test & clear expectations of what to study (4 students, 1 group)
Impressed he codes his website (4 students, 1 group)

Content/Material

Most students find the content helpful in preparing for the exams and appreciated your website.

Has his own website and notes that are very helpful (34 students, 11 groups)
His website is very well formulated and we can tell that he puts a lot of time and effort into it (3 students, 1 group)
Website is very organized/easy to navigate (2 students, 1 group)
Tries preparing children for future chems (2 students, 1 group)
Notes are easily accessible (4 students, 1 group)

Instructional Delivery

Most students appreciated that you engage with class really well and your ability to present the content with interesting examples.

Keeping the class engaged (59 students, 20 groups)
He truly explains and thoroughly teaches each topic (10 students, 4 groups)
Makes learning easier by connecting the dots well (2 students, 1 group)
Projects voice (2 students, 1 group)
Doesn’t read off notes (2 students, 1 group)
Lecture quality pretty good, very helpful when we do questions/examples (2 students, 1 group)
His notes are good (6 students, 2 groups)
Writes on the board to give examples (3 students, 1 group)
He makes good analogies which help us learn (5 students, 1 group)
Has a big voice/talks well (7 students, 2 groups)
Examples used when explaining material are very helpful (3 students, 1 group)
Uses language we understand/doesn’t try to sound too smart or make us feel stupid (3 students, 1 group)
Interesting/fun class (4 students, 1 group)
Good at lecturing (4 students, 1 group)
The content presentation is great with many examples included (2 students, 1 group)
The content is presenting in a conducive way for learning (5 students, 2 groups)
Organized, easy to understand his examples (3 students, 1 group)
Humor makes the chem tolerable and engageable (4 students, 1 group)
He explains why we’re doing what we’re doing instead of just telling us to do it (4 students, 1 group)

Class Pace

On their worksheets, students were asked to indicate their sense of the pace in your class. X students reported that the pace of the class is too slow, Y students reported that it’s just right, and Z students reported that the pace is too fast.

Out of the students, 56 felt the pacing was “just right,” 34 said it was “too slow,” 6 found it “too fast,” and 4 stated that it is between just right and too fast. 3 students mentioned that they are on track with exams but behind on homework.

What is your number one, top choice, gold star recommendation for a constructive change your instructor can make in this course?

After our large group discussion, each group returned to their worksheet and agreed on their top recommendation for you. Here’s what they said:

Instructor

Many students appreciate that you care for them and are approachable. Half of the students like that you chat with them during the class about different things, in addition to teaching the core content, however, others find it difficult to concentrate on the subject and find these tangential talks a bit distracting.

Keep it up! (4 students, 1 group)
Dornshuld for department director! (4 students, 1 group)

Content/Material

Most students requested to have alignment in the difficulty level of practice problems solved in the class, WebAssign problems, and squarecap problems.

Match the difficulty level of notes with the harder WebAssign problems (11 students, 3 groups).
Engagement is great, but we would like more individual square cap problems to work out during class (2 students, 1 group)
More practice problems in class (7 students, 2 groups)
We think he is great, but it would be great if he could actually work the problems out (3 students, 1 group)
His presentations are good, but not enough content is gone through per class (2 students, 1 group)
Your notes are great, but please make them a little simpler and clearly show what we have to memorize. Overall great teaching! (3 students, 1 group)
It would be helpful to go through more content in class and more challenging problems (16 students, 5 groups)
Try to give resources (prev. exams for practice) (2 students, 1 group)
Go more in-depth with the content (3 students, 1 group)
More involvement on eLC to be streamlined for students- posting due dates (4 students, 1 group)
Great content, presentation of content, great public speaking, but we need to cover all of the material (4 students, 1 group)

Instructional Delivery

In my conversation with the students, more than 70% of the class requested to work out practice problems on transparency and project these notes as you write using the overhead projector. Students talked about how the whiteboard is not so visible to all the students in the class.

We think we should allow 5-10minutes in the beginning of class to go over a few of the difficult problems from the homework (3 students, 1 group)
We wish he knew more things apart from the lectures, such as webassign, testing locations, square cap stuff, etc. He answers “I don’t know” to so many questions (2 students, 1 group)
He presents information well and thoroughly (2 students, 2 groups)
Lecture quality is great (2 students, 1 group)
He just needs to stay on topic and go through more content (17 students, 5 groups)
Move quicker through content (10 students, 3 groups)
Go through actually working out problems in class and not just talking them through- use squarecap to make class more interactive (3 students, 1 group)

Assessment

Give more information about the exam (4 students, 1 group) Miscellaneous
Find it ironic ppl say they get lose when you’re on a tangent when they aren’t even like actively trying to take notes and sit there- you’re a good prof, thank you so much (4 students, 1 group)

What’s not working so well in this class? What specific changes should be made, to improve your experience in this class?

Students also made notes on their worksheets about their suggestions for change in your class, along with notes about what isn’t working as well (from their perspective). While some of these items may be repeats from the top priority suggestions listed above, these lists include all of the items students wrote on their small group worksheets, for your consideration.

Instructor

He is not very knowledgeable about UGA’s Chem department (7 students, 2 groups)
When asked about logistical and technological questions about the class he is usually unable to answer (2 students, 1 group)
Difficult office hours for those with schedule conflicts (4 students, 1 group

Content/Material

Overall, students requested more in-class problem-solving exercises and wanted you to demonstrate in the class when they are stuck on a problem. One of the students also shared that some of the materials have been inherited from other instructors and aligning it with what you do in the class, would be helpful.

Wish he could assign us personal practice problems because he knows what we need to practice more (2 students, 1 group)
More examples and board work on math problems or difficult concepts would help. Assignments being due on the same day would also be great (7 students, 2 groups)
Do more examples or equations (7 students, 2 groups)
Using practice problems from past exams or exams in general (4 students, 2 groups)
Covering more content during class (15 students, 4 groups)
Maybe a little behind the online assignments, at times (3 students, 1 group)
Spend more time teaching things that will be on the test (3 students, 1 group)
More content on eLC – post WebAssign due dates on eLC because it’s streamlined or students to access all coursework/due dates on eLC (4 students, 1 group)
Study guides (4 students, 1 group)
We wish his lectures are more synced with the online assignments. We also wish he knew more about the online assignments or exams, as it is hard to get information from him that isn’t just content (2 students, 1 group)
We feel like he kind of brushes over information and we’re forced to learn it on our own before the WebAssign assignments (3 students, 1 group)
The problems are too simplistic, and we need more challenging problems to match what we will be tested on (4 students, 1 group)
Lectures of very easy, then homework is 10x harder (4 students, 1 group)
Wish notes weren’t so much in one section/page (3 students, 1 group)

Instructional Delivery

Half of the students requested more on-the-topic discussion in class and requested to reduce the tangential turns. Students also wanted you to allocate more time to discuss difficult concepts than easier ones.

Sometimes we go off topic a little too long (40 students, 13 groups)
Harder concepts are a little rushed while easier ones are explained for a longer period of time (9 students, 3 groups)
Not teaching with the exam in mind, more focused on getting through content (3 students, 1 group)
Notes could be simpler (3 students, 1 group)
Not sounding as condescending when answering questions (3 students, 1 group)
Jumps around a lot/lectures are hard to follow sometimes (3 students, 1 group)
More visually engaging content, maybe some videos and diagrams (3 students, 1 group)
Lectures could go more in depth (7 students, 2 groups)
A lot of off topic conversation for a good amount of time, we don’t finish topics, and feel out of order or behind compared to online assignments (12 students, 3 groups)
Feels like a PowerPoint with examples (especially math questions) would be helpful (7 students, 2 groups)
Move through content a little faster (6 students, 2 groups)
Lectures sometimes focus on details that could be explained faster (2 students, 1 group)
Doesn’t work out problems, mainly talks through them (4 students, 1 group)
Involve students in problem solving (4 students, 1 group)
Prefer PowerPoint presentations rather than website (4 students, 1 group)
Work out math problems on the projector (4 students, 1 group)

Assessment

Students discussed that demonstrating how to problem solve in class and providing them the opportunity to solve problems and then going over them would help them to feel ready for the assessments.

We feel unprepared for exams and quizzes- other classes seem to have more exam prep and info. We have to do a majority of learning outside of class to feel ready for the exam (4 students, 1 group)
We should have a separate Circle in chat for questions and answers (4 students, 1 group)
More time for review before exams (4 students, 1 group)
Having an exam review day, ask questions, etc. (2 students, 1 group)
WebAssign review perhaps? (3 students, 1 group)

Miscellaneous

It seemed like we were behind compared to some (2 students, 1 group)
We don’t think anything needs to be changed (3 students, 1 group)
Everything is fine (4 students, 1 group)