Minnesota State University Moorhead
Student's Evaluation of Course and Instruction
English Department
Total of Student Responses
Course Engl 211 Time 9:00 Instructor Stephen. Hamrick Date 12/05/03
# of Evaluations returned 15
1) Did the lectures adequately discuss the texts?
1 2 3 3 4 4 5 8 N/A .
2) Was sufficient time devoted to each text?
1 2 2 3 4 4 5 5 4 N/A .
3) How well did this class prepare you for future classes?
1 2 3 3 4 7 5 5 N/A .
4) Were the teaching methods used effective?
1 2 3 3 3 4 8 5 1 N/A .
5) Were tests and/or papers "reasonable" in length?
1 3 2 1 3 1 4 9 5 1 N/A .
6) Was adequate time given to complete assignments?
1 2 2 2 3 1 4 7 5 3 N/A .
7) How would you rate the instructor's attitude toward students?
1 1 2 3 7 4 4 5 3 N/A .
8) Was the instructor available during his/her office hours?
1 2 1 3 2 4 4 5 6 N/A 2
9) Rate the instructor's overall teaching performance.
1 2 3 3 4 10 5 2 N/A .
10) Comment on the quality of the text(s).
11) Other comments:
10) I felt rushed, with a lot of the bigger works – I didn’t feel that there was a lot of time to cover the huge group of writers.
11) I felt that there was too much emphasis on WebCT. I don’t have constant access, and a lot of important info was online… Syllabus changes, papers assignments, etc… I found that I was unable to get to some important information. Many times I was unclear as to what was expected of me, or what I was doing wrong. I enjoyed class discussion, but the out of class work seemed completely different from our discussions at times.
10) The texts were well chosen.
11) This was the most difficult course I have ever taken. I really feel like I was ill prepared for it. My English 102 professor taught me nothing that would have proved relevant or even applicable to this course. For the entire first month I had no idea what you were talking about. I think you need to make the introduction to the course a little slower, explaining things (that may not be apparent) along the way. To this day, I still feel that I can’t explicate properly because you never told me what I was doing wrong – you just wrote no explication or incomplete. I also had a difficult time participating in class because it moved so fast that it was hard to follow.
10) The Beowulf text we bought was easier to read than the Norton text. Some of the works were difficult to understand w/o spending a lot of time w/ a dictionary.
11) I learned a lot in the class, but often felt like we were being pushed a little too hard. Lectures were interesting and engaged me, but I often did not understand what was being asked. The class became more stressful toward the end as we were expected to remember so much that we had never learned before.
10) I’m glad we covered what we did, however, I wish we could’ve spent more time on some of them.
11) We should’ve done more group work. I also thought having the final & the last paper due the same week was a lot.
10) I think the texts we discussed were remarkable, and gave the all students, including myself, a good overview of the English Literature Genre. This will help me in the future.
11) The professor may have had too high of standards for all 211 course, and should have taught all methods of analytical papers before expecting that as an out come. I loved his classroom lectures; however, and this class will definetaly help me in my future ones. I enjoyed this class, but it was very stressful because of his expectations. This is a 211 course and the 300 level course I took this semester was much easier, and did not cause me and stress. The web assignments that were due were very difficult for me to do, because we talked so much about everything in class. We had enough outside work. I don’t believe we needed an extra in that perspective.
10) N/A
11) Relax
10) Fine.
11) Maybe his expectations seemed to high at times, other than that, everything was thoroughly presented, and well taken care of. The grading of papers was more harsh that I thought it should be.
10) More time or less text to discuss some of the work.
11) Learned a great deal that will benefit me later on & has already in my papers. Could have used a little more help w/ paraphrasing & explication.
10) I thought everything was very appropriate.
11) As a first English course at Moorhead, I feel like it prepared me for higher level courses.
10) I’ve used the Norton in other classes and enjoy it. I think it’s a great text for such a broad text.
11) I really liked the small group work the best. With a lot of the poetry it takes several readings to understand the text, with small groups it’s easier to look at the text and completely understand it. Also let the class lead the discussion sometimes, let them make connections. I liked Web CT but think the format should be different. It’s hard for students to post something each week that is very proactive, Make it less of a burden and more of a helpful tool.
10) The text was fine.
11) Very willing to help if asked in person, but I sometimes felt I was thrown into the deep end. Maybe spend time in beginning of semester going of how you want explication & papers done. I felt it was more trial and error on papers & tests. The mid term was fine but felt very unprepared for the difficulty of the final. It is very hard to organize and compose an essay (that is worth so many points) during class & with only one draft. The quotes were also difficult without any aid. The book is helpful because you can only find the quote is you already have a good idea where it is. Also I thought the web assignment were not helpful. I would just post mine w/out even reading the others, then it is so easy to forget because it was online not just “homework.” Otherwise interesting info! Enjoyed class discussion!
10) The quality of the text was difficult to understand, but I feel this was a great class to take since it will give me an opportunity to look at the text in a different way from just paraphrase and summary.
11) I believe Prof. Hamrick went over the text’s very well. He gave us enough information to get the genre of the work being studied.
10) The texts were engaging – well covered.
11) I think that at first your teaching style was intimidating, but throughout the course I gained respect for the methods you introduced the class to. I suppose many will vent their frustrations / failing in this evaluation, but I think those comments will be shortsighted. If you erred, it was in expecting much from the students,. Which is much preferable to undervaluing students. As a separate issue, I didn’t feel as thought discussion on the web was as stimulating as was intended, discussion trickled off in the end. I was however pleased overall with the quality of instruction.
10) The text was ok. But we skipped over so many or only spent a few minutes on some, like Canterbury Tales. I was pumped to read that, but we never really got into it. I did like that we were introduced to lesser known texts though.
11) Dr. Hamrick is better qualified to teach grad classes. This 211 class was more difficult than my American Lit courses. I’m scared to sign up for MDW II. Things weren’t explained clearly at he beginning of the semester, like what explication is. We never learned that in Engl. 101 & 102. The excercises were good, but he never told us what we did wrong and how to fix it. I think that was one of the biggest factors as to why I didn’t do so well in this class, the lack of feed back. Also – the WebCT seemed to be too much. It was hard to read, discuss in class and write papers & assignments – it was too much. In Dr. Hamrick’s defense – I did learn a lot about how to look at language, but I wish it would have been better explained to me what was expected.
10) Appropriate for the class.
11) This was a HARD class! I have no objection to difficult or challenging classes, however the intensity and the objectives of the class were so dissimilar to every single other class I have taken in 1 1/2 years at MSUM. That it was a definite “shock” to me. It might just be the nature of the material (difficult) yet I feel rather un-accomplished at the conclusion of the class! I still feel inadequate in terms of feeling that I mastered even the simpler aspects of the class. I know I did not put 100% effort into this class, yet I feel very strongly that 100% effort would amount to a time commitment that is whole-heartedly unrealistic! I have I have 4 other classes, and my time to this one exceeded All 4 of the others combined! Yet, I will get 4 A’s in those. Probably a C or less in this one! Something is out of “whack”.