I just wanted to get a little more anonymous feedback beyond what I will get from the official BYU course evaluation. There are some specific things that I would like to know about, but I also provide a space for general comments at the end. The survey you do on this page is completely anonymous, and will only be seen by me (Dr. Durfee).
After giving your responses to the specific questions below, please go to route-y and do the official BYU course evaluation for this class. The results of the official BYU evaluation will be seen by me as well as my department chair and other university officers and used for things such as determining whether I should be promoted to full professor, so it is important for me that everyone take part.
What could be done to make the in-class writing more effective and well received by my students?
The holography lab takes up a big chunk of my time and dips into my research money. Is it worth it? Did you learn something from the lab that you wouldn't have otherwise? Were you motivated by the lab to take another look at the math behind it? Do you wish we had left out holography (lab, derivation, and all) all together? What could be done to make it more useful for you?
I'm wondering how to get more students involved in study groups. Some of the options I'm thinking about are (1) Making it mandatory to attend a study group at least one hour each week, with a certain part of your grade determined by your attendance. (2) Doing away with lectures and using class time as a mandatory study group time - we would do quiz questions at the beginning and end, and some demonstrations, but use the rest as a group study time. (3) Not make major changes to the class, but encourage students more emphatically to organize and participate in study groups. Please let me know what you think of these ideas as well as any other ideas you might have.
It was suggested that more examples would be useful. The one specific example that was requested was on finding where images form by ray tracing (which I have since made and posted on the class web page). What other specific problems do we need examples for?
If you could change one thing about the course, what would it be?
What other comments do you have?
© Dallin S. Durfee 2004
