Summary of Student Evaluations

 

Student Comments about Instruction

• Professor Bishop is a excellent professor. He is very helpful and enthusiastic. He offers lots of help and will help when asked.

• With Professor Bishop, this class hasn't really been like any of the others I have had while at GHC. Professor Bishop wants everyone to participate and engage in conversation in order to help each other learn. However, he constantly wants us to analyze everything to the fullest extent, which helps me out a lot. He is also available any time outside of class with any social network or with his email or phone number in order to help out learning.

• An aspect of Professor Bishop's teaching style I genuinely appreciate is how he does not just give the answer, he will guide you towards the answer, but not straight to it. When discussing in class if a student asks if something is the answer, he requires the student to know WHY they think that is the answer and truly test their knowledge of the subject they are speaking about. Another thing is the professor's will to interact with his students. I have sat in Bishop's office multiple times this semester for outside help on a paper or research work, and then after I am finished, Professor Bishop and I will shoot the breeze about football or TV.

• Professor Bishop obviously loves to teach, and his enthusiasm for the subject is contagious. In the past, I have, when necessary, slogged through poetry. This year, I finally came to understand poetry (although TS Eliot is still a bit beyond me). For me, Professor Bishop brought poetry alive. He opened up a whole new, beautiful journey that will serve me the rest of my life. I am not a poet, but I have become an avid reader of poetry because of this instructor; for that, I will be forever grateful. In turn, my non-poetic writing has markedly improved.

• The critique I received from the instructor and the rest of the class has been more useful than any other class I have taken.

• Professor Bishop really wanted you to succeed but did not just give you easy grades. He made us work for it, while teaching us how to write well. I feel more comfortable writing now.

• Professor Bishop encourages class participation and feedback and provides a forum for student interaction online. His lectures are informative and relevant to the areas of study and helpful in promoting understanding of the material and subject matter. he challenges students to go beyond the ordinary and strive for better.

• He was always willing to help people even for hours after class has ended. If you go to him for help, he's always willing to do so. The lectures were clear and interesting. I feel that I have improved greatly in this class.

• This instructor was the absolute best instructor I have had for an online class. He still interacted with us and provided material that really almost didn't really make it seem like it was online course. He provided helpful background and material that made the process much easier. I can not say enough good things about this instructor!

 

 

Student-Recommended Improvements

 

• Graded Work

  • Grade papers in a more reasonable time frame

  • This class has been one of my favorite so far at Highlands. Mr. Bishop has pushed me which has allowed my writing to grow. I have also learned a lot of things in this class that I can use in the future. The only thing that I want to comment on is the grading. I wish I could have received grades on my papers much quicker than the last week of class. That way I could know where I stand and not freak out.

  • Good class I just with papers would have been returned quicker.

  • The ONLY thing that I could comment on which might need to be improved upon would have to be the length of time before any of the students were able to receive their grades. However, I do understand that Professor Bishop has a lot of work that he must attend to, so this is NOT that very big of an issue. Other than that, Professor Bishop conducts his class in a very professional manner.

    • **Comment: I have a received comments such as these for the past few semesters. I have streamlined the course design and interactions to allow for more timely feedback following an assignment. I understand the importance of immediacy with regard to feedback. I have also implemented a peer-review and peer-grading activity to help students get more feedback, more quickly.

• Course Activities

  • I think there was way too much busy work for a college level course. I know it is an introductory course, but I spent more time on minor assignments than I did on my papers.

  • The only complaint I have is in reference to the discussions. I can understand how they could be beneficial to some and the attempt to bring some socialization between students. However, for me personally I find them tedious and an unnecessary "required" aspect of online programs.

    • **Comment: I design all of my courses in a way that scaffolds the instruction. For a student to claim that he/she spent more time on the minor assignments is probably accurate, especially early in the term when I’m trying to acclimate students to new ways of thinking and writing. However, when a student to see those activities as tedious or as busy work, I am not articulating the importance of those activities and exercises clearly enough. I have since tried to offer a more thorough rationale of the activities I require so that students understand why I am asking them to complete certain assignments.

 

• Difficulty

  • I wish instructions for essays and what he was looking for was a bit more specific. I know the essays are more interpretive to each his own but when trying to write my essays I would find it hard to figure out where to even start. Making the connections was also difficult especially outside of class.

  • His grading was extremely hard. I didn't pass one thing in his class.

  • Good teacher, but for an English 1102, I feel as though it was way too difficult. I'm only 19, I don't feel that advanced to understand some of the concepts. It was overwhelming.

    • **Comment: I never want a student to think my courses are hard. This suggests a level of difficulty that is mean-spirited, which is never a goal for me. I design courses that seek to  challenge and push students beyond their comfort zones, but I have never tried to make an assignment purposefully difficult for the sake of difficult. If students feel this way about my classes, then I need to do a better job making my expectations clearer and more specific.