Avoiding evaluations

Not so long ago--like, maybe, yesterday--I might have proclaimed, rather loudly, that I don't intend to ever read student evaluations again. But there they sit, this semester's course evaluations, a set of links in a nice neat little file folder in my inbox. I try to ignore them but they beckon me. "Come on over here," they say, "I've got something to show you!"

So I read them. And they were about what I'd expected, as they usually are: the same complaints I'd expected, the same commendations I always see. Some students don't like writing reading comments and others love it, and someone always says something like "I didn't like doing the reading comments but they helped me understand the reading." So yeah, I'm not getting rid of reading comments. They work whether students like 'em or not.


If course evaluations are so similar every semester, why read them? Next time I'll ignore their urgent wheedling, refuse to click on the links, stash the whole folder in some forgettable place. Walk away from the evaluations! Nothing to see here!

But first I'll just take a teeny peek...