Upon receiving my Course Evaluation for FNH 200, I made the following reflection and implemented changes in my current teaching.

Reflection on Participatory Learning

I will continue to encourage and allow time for class discussion. Students stated in their mid-term formative feedback that they liked class discussion because it made the issues more relevant to their life and class discussion helped them understand difficult concepts.

I am interested in developing my facilitation skills for large class discussion. I would like to make the discussion more inclusive so that even the very quiet students will have a chance to voice their opinions.  I need to allocate more time to effective class discussion.

In the current session of the course, I am including a Team Poster Project as an assignment. I am setting specific class time for students to interact and work on their projects. Students will also have a chance to present their posters to the whole class and ask each other questions. Students will also have a chance to vote for the poster they like the most. I hope that these activities will not only stimulate interest in food-related topics, but will also provide opportunities to learn from teammates and from the rest of the class. I look forward to receiving feedback from students at the end of the term.

Reflection on Lecture Content Vs On-line Content

Immediately after each quiz and mid-term is marked and graded, I reviewed challenging questions with the whole class and point out areas of confusions. I welcome students to visit me so that we could go over their quizzes, mid-term and final exams in person.

I also set very detailed marking scheme for my teaching assistants. I asked them to clearly state areas of improvement on the assignments. The teaching assistants and I met on a regular basis to ensure that we shared the same views and values when we marked.

I believe that students wanting more feedback were specifically asking to have their assignments, quizzes, and mid-terms returned to them. Due to the nature that multiple sessions of this course are offered throughout the year and taught by different instructors/lecturers, the instructor team has decided not to return the quizzes, mid-term and final exam to the students to prevent having copies of exam available to the student body. However, this does not prevent me from providing prompt feedback as I descried above.

Reflection on Students’ Appreciation

I now know what my students appreciate the most and I will keep up with their expectations. My enthusiasm about the course materials and teaching kept students engaged during the learning process. I will continue to use food samples and classroom activities to keep the atmosphere fun and stimulating.

I am very pleased that students enjoyed attending my class as much as I enjoyed teaching it.

Reflection on Lecture Content Vs On-line Content

I provided all the reading materials on-line prior to the beginning of each lesson. I then used the lecture to summarize key concepts and ideas and engaged the students through questions and discussion. I sometime will use a couple topical issues and personal stories to my lecture to increase engagement in the classroom.

These two contradictory statements are telling me that I need to pay more attention on having a balance between content delivery and learning activities in the classroom. I also need to let the students know why I am only summarizing the reading materials in the lecture instead of going into the details.

However, this continues to be a challenging area. Students in my current session constantly ask me if the materials not covered in the lecture will be on the exam (is it important?) If the material is going to be on the exam, then should I talk more about it in class? I am still learning to find the balance. I look forward to discussing this issue with instructors who are also posting their reading materials on-line and using class time for discussion.

Reflection on Diversity in the Classroom: Arts and Sciences

These two statements reflect the diverse background of the students in this class.

I like to let the students know, recognize and appreciate the diversity in the class and in the society. I am hoping that the team poster project that I introduce this year will allow the students to interact with and gain appreciation of each other.

Reflection on Teaching with Teaching Assistants

It is very important that I provide throughout support to teaching assistants in my class.  They must fully understand what I expect from the students before they can provide assistance to them.

I continue to develop detailed marking scheme for assignments, mid-term and final exam. We also meet regularly to share challenges, experiences and views.

Reflection on Physical and Technical Set Up

I am using a microphone now. I have also directed the concerns to appropriate support teams on campus.

Reflection on Students’ Overall Recommendations

I continue to encourage students to talk to me when they have issues related to the content. This allows me to make immediate changes when I can. I am also including more supplementary readings to students wanting extra information.

I will continue to allow students to use a memory aide (a 8.5 x 11 inch note) at the mid-term and final exam. I hope this will alleviate the pressure to memorize everything. I will revise some of the exam questions to test for their analytical skills.

Overall Reflections

I will keep my observation in mind and be aware of the placement of different questions on program evaluation. How they are arranged in a survey will have an impact on the final grades. I will be careful when I develop program evaluations in the future.