An illustration: Midterm Evaluations by Students

At the end of Fall 2002, approximately half of the student comments about Math 120 were represented by the students who said the instructor ``should explain more'' and ``not let us figure it out on our own.'' Such concerns are common among students accustomed to the direct instruction (lecture) model of teaching. As a result of those student concerns I made three changes to my teaching of liberal arts mathematics:

(1) I piloted a new book, one that was more accessible to the students but still had mathematically rigorous problem sets;

(2) From the first day on, once each week, I spent some time talking about how I was organizing the course and why;

(3) I explicitly stated, each time I gave a problem-solving demonstration, ``This is the part where you take notes and ask questions of me about the material. When we get to the activity, you ask each other first, then come to me.''

After reading the midterm evaluations in Fall 2003, I learned to do the complement of Item 3 above: point out to students when we were working on an activity that was directly connected to the concepts they would read about in their book and engage with in doing homework problems. It is reasonable to conclude that the positive shift in student perceptions of the course between Fall 2002 and Fall 2003 were influenced by my acting on the Midterm Evaluation information.