A new system, “Midterm Teaching Evaluation,” will be launched this semester, providing students a channel to express opinions about their teachers’ teaching before the midterm, which is an importance source for teacher’s reference. The evaluation time is between October 18 and 31. Each student can log in the evaluation website anonymously: http://info.ais.tku.edu.tw/tas/ .
Dr. Pai Di-ching, Section Chief of Educational Evaluation Section, Center for Learning and Teaching, indicates that this survey aim at providing information of student response before the midterm. According to the section, Midterm Teaching Evaluation has become a new trend in local and international universities. In noted American universities, such as University of California at Berkeley, Cornell University, it is proceeded by questionnaire in class. Local universities, such as Chiao Tung University, Taiwan University of Technology, Soochow University, Tunghai University, Shih Hsin University, and I-Shou University have adopted this system.
Educational Evaluation Section points out that this midterm evaluation stresses on “improvement in teaching and learning.” The former end-of-term educational evaluation, which is proceeded near the end of a semester, may not timely help the instructor to react to student’s responses to the teaching method. With such a midterm online questionnaire, it is expected to help the teachers to modify the teaching and increase the students’ learning efficiency. The questions of the survey, adopted from that of other universities, are open questions. The web format may reduce the expense in paper work, while the anonymous answering may afford the students to express their opinions freely.
Tsao Chien-chuen, an instructor of Dept. of Mass Communication, expresses that this system may benefit her teaching, for “the result of the survey is not quantified data but a more concrete verbal description of student’s opinions, which may lead to a more practical direction of change.”
Huang Yiu-hsin, a sophomore of Dept. of English, believes that such a system “invites the student to actively engage in the education” by providing channel of feedback. Tuan I-ling, a junior of Dept. of Chinese, said that anonymous answering is a good idea, for she can express her appreciation and gratitude to the teachers freely. Tsai Wei-chi, a senior of Dept. of Management and Decision Making, thinks that “thought open question will invite a more concrete opinion, it could also provide irrelevant answers.” The section believe that since the questionnaire is not compulsory, the students will not fill in irrelevant content, and to encourage the students to involve in the anonymous evolution the section will provide special lottery gifts for participants. ( ~Chen Chi-szu )
