At the end of every year (and in some cases at the end of every semester), teachers pass out sheets of paper, appoint one student to collect the papers and take them to principal for academic affairs Barbara McCormick’s office once everyone has finished and then the teacher leaves the room. Every student knows what time it is: course evaluation time.

But what happens to those papers after they are placed on McCormick’s desk? Do the teachers slave over them for hours, tallying the answers to every question? Do they throw them away? Does McCormick keep them to herself in a secret file in her desk? Do the teachers try to read handwriting to figure out which girl writes what and flunk students who make negative remarks?

Administration’s perspective:

According to McCormick, course evaluations are not to be confused with teacher evaluations. Once a year, students complete course evaluations, which are meant to help teachers adjust their course structures and modify coursework, strategies and teaching behaviors. The administration conducts teacher evaluations through observation and formal evaluations.

Last semester, McCormick read through course evaluations of five different classes. She said she looked over them by class, tallied some things and returned her comments and the evaluations to the teachers.

‘It was time consuming,’ McCormick said. ‘I can’t imagine I can read every [evaluation at the end of the year].’

McCormick said the students asked for things like more class discussions to keep guided meditations and wrote down if they felt their teacher was giving too much homework. McCormick said some of the feedback was very helpful.

‘The students did a good job [last semester] of being clear and concise,’ McCormick said.

McCormick acknowledges the fact that teachers become familiar with their students’ handwriting and questions whether or not students feel completely anonymous when filling out course evaluations. This concerns her, as she feels students should be truly honest on these evaluations.

‘[Answers to questions like,] ‘ËœIf you would change this, add this, is the teacher available’¦,’ this is good feedback because the administration has control over this,’ McCormick said.

McCormick admitted the process might need some review as the information supplied by the course evaluations cannot be calculated unless it is tally marked. However, she still believes course evaluations are a great tool for making course modifications.

Teacher’s perspective:

Until this year, science teacher Renee Blake followed the standard procedure of passing out course evaluations. However, this year, Blake posted her course evaluation on moodle, the school’s new course management system, and assigned the course evaluation for homework. The students’ responses appeared in a spreadsheet on Google docs (a web-based word processor and spreadsheet) without their student ID numbers or user names attached. Blake feels the online environment in which students could complete the evaluation on their own time allowed students to be more honest.

‘This is the first year that I had [responses in the form of] paragraphs,’Â Blake said.

According to Blake, most of the assignments students turn in to her are typed, so she rarely recognizes a student’s handwriting on course evaluations. However, she said she can put a name with penmanship if a student has very distinctive handwriting. This is why Blake believes that on paper, students are more apt not to be completely honest.

Though Blake said she had to fumble through learning how to create and manage the online evaluations the first time, she believes the online route was overall highly beneficial. According to Blake, Google docs compiles the ratings (course evaluations often ask questions such as, ‘Is the teacher available outside of class to answer questions? Rate this on a scale of one to five.) and creates bar charts and graphs based on the data, which is hard to do with the ratings on sheets of paper.

Blake has altered labs and activities based on responses received from course evaluations.

‘If [the evaluations] make the class better, then [they are] worth it,’Â Blake said.

Student’s perspective:

Junior Elizabeth Vater says she is rather honest when it comes to course evaluations because she feels she is truly anonymous. However, she admits to slightly altering her handwriting to ensure her anonymity. Vater likes to think course evaluations make a difference, but says a lot of students just write things down to ‘get it over with.’ As a student in Blake’s AP biology class, Vater took an online course evaluation at the end of last semester. According to Vater, she disliked having to do the evaluation at home and she did not feel a significant difference between the handwritten and online evaluations.

Senior Celeste Bremen says she is also pretty honest when it comes to course evaluations. She said she puts a lot of effort into the evaluations and does not care if the teachers recognize her handwriting, although she says she is a little ‘nicer’ since she is ‘worried’ the teachers will see it. As another student enrolled in Blake’s AP biology class, Bremen was also asked to complete the online course evaluation at the end of last semester. But actually, Bremen did not take it.

‘I guess I dislike that it wasn’t in class,’ Bremen said. ‘I forgot about it. So, I guess it is less accessible or I’m just lazy.’

Despite the fact she has never actually completed an online evaluation, Bremen believes the online evaluations would allow students to be more honest, as the students would have more time to think about their responses.