You Like Me . . . You Really Like Me

I got my first evaluation as a teacher today – and found little to surprise me there.

It’s all good, by all appearances. They don’t think I’m enough of an idiot to not invite back for another semester. I must not be too damaging to the students who fall under my shadow. And my evaluator actually gave me a higher grade than I gave myself, though I can’t remember the scale on which the grades are based. X out of 10?

No matter.

My challenge: Be less of a babbler. Those of you long familiar with this blog know what a challenge that will be to me, because I tend to be a babbler and to take pride in my babbling. I recall several instances from my days as an online student when I felt incompetent if the percentage of classroom posts from me fell below 20 percent of the class total. (Not all of that was babbling, mind you; I did actually contribute some good thought-provoking stuff. Well, I have to assume that, because my instructors then were far too polite to pull me aside into some virtual corner to tell me to shut the heck up.) So I’ll have to look again at the BYU-Idaho learning model to figure out how I can step back and still feel like an instructor while letting the students teach themselves. And hope I don’t swing the pendulum too far in the other direction.

Anyway, for the morbidly curious, here’s my full, one-page evaluation. Hope you enjoy it.