I received my student evaluations of teaching for the spring semester of 2019 about an hour ago. I taught four classes this semester, and at my institution for every class we receive a one page summary of our evaluations, a one page summary of our progress on relevant learning objects (which we identify before the evaluations go out), tips for improving your teaching effectiveness based on the quantitative responses, the raw data for each response, and qualitative responses (i.e. written student feedback).
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For this post, I will be providing something of a “live update” / immediate recap of reading through the evaluations. I will not necessarily be writing about what the evaluations say specifically. Instead, I will be focusing more on my mindset in regards to consuming the information provided AND how to get something valuable for me as an instructor out of reading the evaluations.

​When we first started brainstorming about our writing in the classroom series, my mind immediately jumped to the ‘writing workshop’ I hold twice per semester in my introductory psychology course. However, this writing workshop is quite similar to the exercise detailed by Karly in Monday’s post for this series. I agree that making a draft of their essay due for an in-class peer reviewed activity helps keep students accountable, develops editing skills, and allows students to learn from the positive and negative aspects of the other papers they review. I like to have students review multiple papers during one writing workshop so that they are exposed to a range of papers (in terms of quality) and so that students can see the edits or comments previous reviewers left. I encourage students to comment on or respond to remarks left by previous editors, because paying attention to editing style also helps students learn by example. My writing workshop also incorporates structured class discussion where we talk about beneficial and detrimental aspects of the papers students reviewed most recently. The discussion touches on micro-, meso-, and macro-level elements of the essay. At the end of each semester, students comment that the two writing workshops help them improve their essays dramatically, and I can attest to this as well as the average grade for essays in my class has increased since the introduction of the writing workshop. While I agree whole-heartedly with Karly about the benefits of using class time to help students become better writers and editors, I wanted to add something new to the series.

Alright, alright – for this week we are all describing one of our favorite activities to use in class.  As I have taught Intro Psych. primarily since becoming a professor, I will be focusing on an activity I like to use for Intro.  As a big fan of The Office, I would often watch an episode or two while eating dinner. I noticed quickly that there are TONS of clips from the office that are well suited to illustrate various topics we cover in Intro.  Stated as directly as possible – my favorite in-class activity to use (for Intro Psych) is incorporating clips from The Office whenever and wherever possible.​

​For the current semester, my in-class research centers on investigating the impact of one-on-one meetings with students within the first week of class. I was driven to begin this research because I had mandated that students meet with me at the beginning of the semester, so I could get to know them better than in previous semesters; however, I was unaware of any data supporting the utility of such meetings. As instructors of psychology we encounter hundreds of students (or more) per year. We also know that if students feel a connection to the class or the instructor they are more likely to remain engaged and invested in their education (and just before the time of writing I came across this article: “Student Success in Introductory Psychology: The Value of Teachers Knowing More About Their Students” by Wu and Kraemer (2017) which I will need to read). So, my primary motivation with this project is to figure out how an instructor of psychology can work to form a meaningful connection with all students? 

Here at The Novice Professor (and everywhere else) academics are heading into a new school year. As "this" year comes to a close we are reflecting on the past year and setting goals for the upcoming year. To inspire you, and help hold ourselves accountable, we are sharing our goals with you in this week's posts, spanning several topics of academic life. 

We at The Novice Professor are still working on developing habits that will increase our Productivity and tweaking our work-life balance. Three of us share our goals in this area.

​Here at The Novice Professor (and everywhere else) academics are heading into a new school year. As "this" year comes to a close we are reflecting on the past year and setting goals for the upcoming year. To inspire you, and help hold ourselves accountable, we are sharing our goals with you in this week's posts, spanning several topics of academic life. 

Here at The Novice Professor (and everywhere else) academics are heading into a new school year. As "this" year comes to a close we are reflecting on the past year and setting goals for the upcoming year. To inspire you, and help hold ourselves accountable, we are sharing our goals with you in this week's posts, spanning several topics of academic life. 


​Research and Writing are important aspects of academic life, no matter your institution or position as evidenced by all four of us having goals in this area.