On, I continue! Slogging through Student Perspectives Of Teaching! This time, PSYCH 367: Perception. (If it's not immediately obvious, my comments in parentheses are in full-on sarcastic/snark mode.)
“Slides should be relased for finals or atleast sometime during the course to review. Its not fair to have fill in the blank notes and expect everyone to be able to attend classes and never miss one. Students should not be faulted because other students do not attend your classes. The blanks could be provided or the slides to provide extra information. everyclass moved very quickly and would sometimes go on irrelevant tangents.”
(Me? Irrelevant tangents? I stick really close to my notes. Sometimes I got questions from students that I tried my best to answer. Is that what you mean by “tangents”? You can get any missed blanks from me at the end of class. Or from the Discord.)
“The notes and course are really well put together and easy to follow! Notes make sense and are well suited to the material Lectures are the most engaging part of this class. They are fun and interesting and presented in a very easy way to follow with easily understood language.”
(I’m glad it works for some people.)
“Topics not gone over thoroughly enough. major topics are brought up and then dismissed with no emphasis whatsoever”
(I wish I knew what “major topic” I bought up and then “dismissed.” Being specific here would actually help me. There’s nothing I can do with this vague feedback. You see, it’s really hard to present information to other people so that they can understand it. Was it autism? See, I can't go off on an "irrelevant tangent" or some people won't like that. See above.)
“Might have been nice to have a basic rubric or template for labs, just to get any idea of the desired format.”
(Yup, I know. I’m working on it.)
“Your classes are the only classes I have ever taken that require me to graph data. No prerequisites for this course seem to require digital literacy. As such I suggest that at minimum, the requirements for graphing are better laid out within course documentation. Preferably, this would be a skill that you would actually teach us. The references included do not contain sufficient information on what is required to organize the data, and modify the graph to make it do what it should. I genuinely found making a graph to be the most challenging content in the entire class.”
(At some point, you have to learn how to do graphing. This is that point. I’ve never taken a course in graphing. I’m completely self-taught--in the era before YouTube. In this course you were required to make: two graphs. That’s all. Just two line graphs. I’m happy to hear that you were able to learn how to make graphs in this course. I consider that a success. I mean, are there university courses on how to make a graph? Let me know and I will seriously add that as a prerequisite. Seriously.)
“The lectures consisted of tons of information and evidence to back up theories that were both disproven and proven. It was difficult to follow what was the actual theories that are in use present day as we had to also know the false ones.”
(Er, theories are not “true” or “false” (or right or wrong). That’s not how theories work. We get to better theories by seeing what didn’t work. I showed you the scientific process. There is value in that. This is a third-year course. It’s not about getting the right answer and moving on. There is complexity and nuance to science that you’re only starting to see at this level. Wait till you get to graduate courses. Shit, you’ll start to believe that nothing is true.)
“the course website stating how you have never missed a class is not very supporting or accomodating to students. Students should not be faulted because other students do not attend your classes. It is not my problem that people do not attend your classes. Most profs do provide slide lectures.”
(So my strong work ethic is not “supporting”? You’ll have to connect the dots for me on that one. I try very hard to be present for students in my classes--even when I was feeling ill pre-Covid. Likewise, I expect a level of commitment from students. Missing a class here or there happens, I acknowledge that. But this was an in-person class. So is it now unreasonable of me to expect that students actually attend classes? I guess you don’t have to. But you also don’t have to get an A. No, I don’t provide slides. That’s not my style. I’ve sat in on classes in which everyone has the slides. It's unbelievable how many students were disengaged, on their phones, going through email. Great, they were in class. But they weren’t present.)
“It felt like we were often rushing through things closer to exams, not giving us enough time to reflect and learn the information before the exam.”
(That’s on me and I apologized to the class for it. I’ll apologize again. I am sorry. I know that I need to remove some content. Editing is really hard for me.)
“the format of the notes, the epolls during class and the online labs were all amazing ways to reinforce what we were learning and added an active element to classes. 10/10”
(Thx)
“While the text book was helpful and so were the practice tests that it gave, I would've strongly preferred at least one practice test from the prof. Every prof as a unique way of writing questions and being able to have baseline for what questions to expect make it easier to prepare.”
(See, that’s where the ePoll questions come in. I wrote those.)
“Overall, I liked the textbook! I just wish there wasn't so much extra content in addition to lecture notes - it makes studying a little difficult as I don't know what to really focus on.”
(I’m glad you found the textbook helpful. I’m ditching it next time I teach this class.)
“Labs didn't really help my understanding, personally, and were just more work for grading.”
“The labs helped reinforce some important concepts in the course.”
(Do you see how these surveys don’t really help me do my job? I mean, what am I supposed to do with this information?
“Both the midterms felt like they tested on material we never covered, and were not really in the lecture notes. Even after studying a lot I still wasn’t prepared because the tests had questions on other material that we didn’t go over.”
(I have never put a question on an exam based on material that was not in the lecture or textbook. Did you, y’know, read the textbook? That’s where 50% of the exam questions came from. Hmm, I think I may have discovered the cause of your difficulty.)
“That one lab due just before reading week was sneaky and mean, especially considering there was another lab due on the first day back after classes. I would pick one or the other.”
(Not trying to be sneaky or mean. I could, if I tried. Having things due on the weekend, like some instructors do. I try to space out the labs as much as possible, while also trying to cover the relevant background material before you do the lab. It’s very difficult to do this. Keep in mind, the labs are free. If I went with for-pay labs--about $60--I’d have a great selection to choose from and much greater flexibility. But I’d get mad comments from students about having to pay so much to do labs. I know the timing of these labs sucked. But I’ll see what else I can do next time. It's interesting that I didn't get a single positive comment about the labs being free.)
“Two midterms I feel is not accurate or conducive to learning. More exams worth a smaller percentage of the overall grade I think would have benefited in this course as there was so much content that was expected to be known and memorized for the exams. More exams allow for most focus on the key concepts.”
(You want more exams? You, dear person, are in the distinct minority. Don’t tell your fellow students about this!)
“it would be useful to have low stakes quizzes to see if the content was actually being learned after each chapter and to also promote staying on top of the reading chapters from the textbook”
(So, you want something like, um, chapter quizzes maybe? Like the chapter quizzes that are on eClass? Or are you saying you want free marks for doing these?)
“My instructor provided very helpful examples that made the content interesting!”
“The visuals/examples make the class more engaging and are something hat is easy to reflect on when writing the exams/reviewing”
“Examples used in class were great.”
“Diagrams, videos, interactive activities were a really nice touch to the course material - it helped with staying focused during the entire class!”
“Very very very very very good at explaining things and giving help one-on-one if you asked. I wish I had the time to come and ask for help or have the language to get help.”
“They explained things very well and would change the explanation from the textbook to help”
“I never asked but when anyone asked questions in class he was quick to come up with a different way of putting it aside from the written notes to help people understand”
(Whew. I’m glad I’m not completely wasting my time. I was starting to get worried!)
“No feedback was ever given by you, by the ta yes but not by you. when the average was 60 all you had to say was that it was consistent with past perfromance which is bull**** and not motivational or helpful at all.(To the first person: I designed the labs that the TA give you feedback on. That's a design choice I made. Also, do you want me to say that the class did badly? And some people did really crappy on the exam? That would be demotivating. Sometimes, classes do better than historical averages, which I take great care to point out to the class. And, see what the second person wrote? I’m here to help. But I’m not going to come over to your house or anything. You have to make some effort. Did you reach out to me at all?)
* Inappropriate words were found and removed from this response.”
“I emailed the prof with concerns on my performance and was replied to with a lengthy email about ways in which I could better my performance of exams and also with what resources to refer to.”
“Not the most approachable.”(*heavy sigh*)
“the nicest prof i’ve ever had by far!”
“Oh, he makes the class feel amazing with how he talks, jokes, and sets himself up in the class. I love this man so much, and I hope my next class with him is even better (:. He really REALLY reminds me of Wilson from the show 'House, M.D.' and makes me want to watch the show so much every time I have a class of his.”(❤️)
“Very respectful and made the lectures fun to attend due to their sense of humour and this also made the content more enjoyable to learn. They also had amazing examples of each topic to help with learning the material and having those examples be fun made it easier to learn too”
“I really like Dr. Loepelmann's teaching style, and the material in the classes he teaches are always fascinating. I was already really interested in perception, and I was delighted when I found out he taught that class! I look forward to taking more classes with him in the future <3”
“this is the best prof at the entire uofa he deserves all the praise in the world! he clearly loves his area of expertise and going to his class is always a good experience. obviously the content is hard but he does a good job of explaining the majority of the time.”
Why aren't you studying?
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