Ending Your Semester Well
You're almost finished with the semester, but your job as a TA isn’t over just yet. Visit this website for advice on how to end your semester well!
Getting the Most Out of Evaluations and Feedback
It's important to evaluate your teaching so you can learn from feedback your students and mentors provide. If you have trouble figuring out how to integrate and incorporate your teaching evaluations remember that you can reach out to your William & Mary network! Your advisor, the instructor of record, and other grad students all have experience with evaluations and can help you figure out how to use them meaningfully.
Instructors of Record (TFs) will receive official W&M course evaluations. You should save these as important documents; you might need them if you apply to academic teaching jobs.
Teaching Assistants may or may not receive formal student evaluations for their role as TA. Ask the course professor whether they will be collecting evaluations of your performance in class from students. If not, you should consider gathering your own. Be sure to do so in a way that maintains student anonymity.
For TAs, here are some sample questions you could use to create your own evaluation form using Google Forms, Qualtrics, or similar platform:
- How prepared was your TA? [Extremely prepared; Quite prepared; Moderately prepared; Slightly prepared; Not at all prepared.]
- How clearly did your TA present material? [Extremely clearly; Quite clearly; Moderately clearly; Slightly clearly; Not at all clearly.]
- To what extent do you feel your TA helped you develop ____ [insert relevant skill, e.g., critical thinking, writing skills, lab skills]? [A great deal of help; a lot of help; a moderate amount of help; a little help; not any help at all]
- How helpful was the feedback you received from your TA on assignments? [Extremely helpful; Quite helpful; Moderately helpful; Slightly helpful; Not at all helpful]
- How clearly did your TA answer questions? [Extremely clearly; Quite clearly; Moderately clearly; Slightly clearly; Not at all clearly.]
- How effectively did your TA lead discussions of course material? [Extremely effectively; Quite effectively; Moderately effectively; Slightly effectively; Not at all effectively.]
- Please constructively describe your TA's strengths in the classroom.
- Please constructively describe your TA's weaknesses in the classroom.
