Student Comments on teacher evaluation...part 2

Glenn tries to help you to speak up and be active in the class.


This is a particularly interesting question for me. The best gift I have received recently were two comments from parents of extremely shy and quiet students who say they feel very supported and comfortable in my class. Since I am a big, white man, I would say this is a great event.


Some comments:


I don't like to talk in class and Glenn wants to help me do this better


I think that Glenn does a very good job of encouraging kids to speak up and be active in class


Lately Glenn has been encouraging questions and saying not just myself but also other people.


But an interesting type of comments arose:


We don't have many class discussions, so it's hard.


We rarely do activities that involves the whole class and if we do he only picks people who are raising their hands. but if those people have gone already then he either picks them again if they want to go up or he'l just randomly pick sombody else


This is a truth: I don't have much whole group discussion. In fact, I try to limit the whole class discussion to less than 10 minutes out of the hour or so of class. Most of our class time is devoted to math work in groups, partners or individual.


A couple of other comments:


He calls on me when I have no idea what the answer is but not when I am raising my hand and I know the answer. I would like to be called on when I know the answer not just when I don't know and the whole class laughs.


You get kids back on task if they are being distracted :p


These last two comments encapsulate a typical day in middle school math classroom. I wish parents understood this better.