Anonymous end-of-semester evaluation of CrCrTh 645/Biol 545 hybrid, Spring 2019 (Taylor/Thompson)
The responses go to the Critical & Creative Thinking Program Director and will not be shown to the instructor until after grades are submitted. Note also that all questions require a response to prevent inadvertent submission of blank evaluations. This evaluation has multiple audiences and multiple goals:

You, a student in the course, to reflect on how you approach learning in courses (especially Q1)
Instructor, to improve the course (esp. Qs 2-4)
Superiors, to monitor the instructor’s performance (esp. Qs 3-5)
Future students, to decide if they want to take the course and how to approach it (Q4 only)
For this last purpose and audience, a compilation of responses to Q4 will be linked to the information on the public CCT wiki for the course.
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1. Start with an evaluation of yourself. What were your personal goals in taking this course? Did you achieve them? How would you have proceeded differently if you were doing this course again? What have been your major personal obstacles to learning more from this course? *
1. Self-evaluation (continued). What have you learned about what you have to do to make a course stimulating and productive (with respect to the format of this course: face-to-face, online, hybrid)? *
2. General Evaluation of course. What was special about this course (+positive and/or -negative)? How did the course meet or not meet your expectations? In what ways do you think this course could be improved? *
2. General evaluation (continued). In what ways did your attitude to doing the course change through the semester? How does it compare with other graduate courses? What would be your overall recommendation to prospective students? *
Course Description/Goals (for question 3):
Current and historical cases are used to examine the political, ethical, and other social dimensions of the life sciences. Close examination of developments in the life sciences can lead to questions about the social influences shaping scientists' work or its application. This, in turn, can lead to new questions and alternative approaches for educators, biologists, health professionals, and concerned citizens. Critical thinking about the diverse influences shaping the life sciences. Topics include evolution and natural selection; heredity, development and genetic determinism; biotechnology and reproductive interventions. We interpret episodes in science, past and present, in light of scientists' historical location, economic and political interests, use of language, and ideas about causality and responsibility.
You address the course material on a number of levels:
-as an opportunity to learn the science and approaches to interpreting science;
-as models for working as an educator--construed broadly as stimulating greater citizen involvement in scientific debates; and
-as a basis for discussions about practices and philosophies of education and lifelong, collaborative learning.
You undertake individual semester-long "learning/engaging" project in an area of the life sciences in their social context about which you are interested in engaging others in learning and critical thinking. Each week you adopt or adapt the themes and activities from the previous session to apply to your project area. This provides many tools and perspectives on self-directed research (and thus serves as a research seminar for honors students).

3. Evaluation in relation to the course description. Read the course description/goals above. Comment on how well the goals expressed in the syllabus were met. Make general and specific suggestions about how these could be better met. *
4. Synthetic statement (1 or 2 paragraphs). Building on your comments from Qs 1-3, compose a synthetic statement (1 or 2 paragraphs) evaluating this course. (Imagine readers who might not be willing to wade through all the answers to Qs 1-3, but are willing to read more than simply the numerical averages of standard course evaluations.) Please make comments that help the instructor develop the course in the future and that enable some third party appreciate the course’s strengths and weaknesses. Among other things you might comment on the overall content and progression of classes, the session activities, and the use of mentors to support the learning in the course. *
I give permission for my response to Question 4 to be included anonymously in the compilation posted to the CCT wiki (and thus viewable to the public). *
Using the scale below, overall, how would you evaluate this course? *
Using the scale below, overall, how would you evaluate this instructor? *
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