Below are excerpts of written feedback I have received from teaching observations in the Wayne State University English Department.
General
“I was consistently impressed with the course design, teacher ethos, and extended resources for students”
–Faculty observation on ENG 3050, F18
English literature after 1700 [ENG 3120] F20
I found your engagement with the students to be creative and inspiring. I really appreciated the innovative ways that you used Teams to structure interactions and discussions, and it was clear that your students were energized rather than intimidated by the online format. Also, you did a great job of helping your students gain new skills (both literary and technological) and become confident by giving them detailed guidance on how to post their own videos. All in all, our students were in great hands. The survey courses are not easy to teach, but you made it look that way.
Professor Jaime Goodrich, F20
Your course is very impressive. … I think your syllabus is well designed and coherent. What a huge amount of work to make your own electronic anthology! I’m impressed. Great choice with Blake and the Blake Archive. I watched your Artist in Nature lecture, which I enjoyed. I like your thematic focus and pairing of authors in the long march through three plus centuries. I like the strategy of using the close readings as a path to the longer paper. That’s a nice way to do it.
You’re emphasizing Blake, and Wordsworth and Coleridge. That’s very reasonable. With the Persuasion novel you’re giving them another angle on late 18th and early 19th c. literature. Pairing up the Innocence and Experience is very helpful, and you’re giving them a treat of visual beauty with Blake’s plates. There are lots of ways to slice up the Romantic period, and this is certainly one of the good ways to do it.
–Professor Michael Scrivener, F20
Student-centered learning activities
You are doing very well to encourage this at this level for an online course. We could all do more with various technologies supporting more dynamic group work, but you are doing well by encouraging them to use Slack and programs to track their time. I also really like the simple technology of your task list (I’m totally stealing this!). I’d be curious to know if Eat That Frog went over well, and if it encouraged participation online or a better sense that collaborations can indeed be productive in more students.”
–Faculty observation on ENG 3050, F18
“Strong rapport with students.”
–Faculty observation on ENG 1020, W18
Instructional materials
“The schedule page on the Canvas site is very smartly organized.”
–Faculty observation on ENG 3050, F18
“Excellent description of policies–very clear and well organized document.”
–Faculty observation on ENG 1020, W18
Assignments, comments, and grading
“Overall … The feedback and grading is excellent.
–Faculty observation on ENG 3050, F18
The feedback on the A level paper was more than appropriate in diagnosing strengths to these particular assignments–using the rubric well and enhancing this with written commentary mostly aimed at affirming smart detail oriented writing and affirming what works well in the final product.
Your in-text comments are diversified and restated well when appropriate in the end/holistic comments. The holistic comments at the end were generous in relating what they’ve achieved in terms of the course learning outcomes at times too!
This was also the case in the C level paper, and the comments were encouraging and likely to still prompt student reflection on what they can do to progress.”
“Excelleptional support material, including an evaluation rubric and scaffolding material.”
–Faculty observation on ENG 1020, W18
Organization and clarity
“Excellent level of organization of the modules on the whole… and each week is well scaffolded with additional resources, quite a few of which were new to me and useful.”
–Faculty observation on ENG 3050, F18
Communication with and responsiveness to students
“Very consistent and cool presentations throughout the semester! Excellent.”
–Faculty observation on ENG 3050, F18
“The lesson was appropriate for the course. It functioned to introduce the concept of developing arguments out of research. The level of difficulty seemed to work well for students in the course.”
–Faculty observation on ENG 1020, W18
Knowledge
“Your integration of all the ‘tools’ from different facets of writing studies is a great way to go about supplementing the course with your knowledge … and it shows how well you emphasize writing and design as you keep yourself in command of such issues and engage students more usefully and personally at times, than the ‘textbook knowledge’ allows.”
–Faculty observation on ENG 3050, F18