Evaluating and improving your classes

Abstract

In previous columns, I have written about how to plan, organize, prepare for, and teach classes in wilderness emergency care. But how do you know whether your class design and teaching are effective? Most instructors use some kind of participant evaluation form that gives them an idea of whether or not the students liked the class. Well-designed evaluation forms can yield far more information than that, and there are many other types of feedback that can help you assess and improve your classes. Remember that student performance, as well as student opinion, is feedback on your class design and teaching. If a class that everybody liked, with an instructor that they thought was wonderful, had students graduate that didn’t know and couldn’t do anything, it would not be considered a successful class. I have seen such classes. You need to collate opinion and performance feedback to evaluate and improve your classes.