Course Evaluation according to Ganley and Fisher

Barbara Ganley’s blog is very interesting reading.  I spent way too much time reading there but found some very good things which I bookmarked. Looking for course evaluations but found more on student work evaluations.  Student work is part of the course and how they do reflects on the effectiveness of the course. In the following post she discusses how students were doing prior to introducing blogging to them. This took place in September 2001.

The post was written in June 2006, which was five years later. http://mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/ganley/bgblogging/2006/06/at_the_uks_first_edublogging_c.html 

She discusses the growth students have made since the first year of blogging. According to her, students have made substantial growth in writing in the five years since she introduced blogging to her course.  Her evaluation of her course is tied in to her evaluation of her students who were assessed by tough rubrics.

 Today’s post Nov. 4th has a reference to a course rubric which is still in the works. It will be interesting reading.

Clarence Fisher’s blog was also interesting reading but for other reasons. http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/remote_access/2007/06/end_of_year_eva.html  This blog is titled End of Year Evaluations and Fisher discusses the problem he has with standardized testing that he has to administer to his students along with ongoing assessments he does throughout the year in order to keep parents and administrators satisfied with student achievement according to grades.  The student achievement that he considers is the growth in higher level thinking and reading along with higher order writing that they are doing in their online studies the true measure of success of the course.Both of these educators have a diverse way of course evaluation which is connected to student learning and can be assessed in a totally different way than standardized and traditional tests.