HST 195 F10 (Escobar META 21581 24392): Questionnaire Report

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Responses: 26

Student Evaluation of Instruction & Course

ALL online courses at Lane are supposed to have a student evaluation component. While there may be some similarities, this specific student evaluation you are reading now is NOT a standardized list of questions that is used in every class, but is created by the individual instructor and unique to the class.

I am genuinely interested in creating the best online experience that I can, and I am certain there are ways I might be able to improve this course. With that in mind, I would appreciate your honest, thoughtful responses to the following questions.

The only module in Moodle which allows for completely anonymous student participation (even though you are logged into Moodle with your L# and PIN) is this Questionnaire Activity, specifically set to anonymous mode, which I have done. Every question below requires some sort of answer.

1. Rate the following:

Strongly Agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly Disagree

I felt this course was well organized.

1.5

The required reading and assignments contributed to my learning.

1.5

I put enough time and energy into this course to meet or exceed the course requirements.

1.8

The instructor's feedback was clear and useful.

1.7

The instructor provided timely feedback.

1.7

The instructor treated students with respect.

1.5

The instructor provided opportunities for students to learn from each other.

1.4

The instructor was available and helpful.

1.5

2. Rate the following:

Highly Effective

Effective

Ineffective

Very Ineffective

Overall I would rate the effectiveness of the instructor as:

1.5

Overall I would rate the effectiveness of the course as:

1.7

3. On average how many hours a week did you spend on the course?

Response	Average	Total
3-4 hours a week	38%	10
4-5 hours a week	31%	8
5 or more hours a week	31%	8

Total	100%	26/26

4. On average how many times a week did you log onto your course?

Response	Average	Total
2-3 times a week	19%	5
3-4 times a week	27%	7
4-5 times a week	12%	3
5 or more times a week	42%	11

Total	100%	26/26

5. Including this course, how many total courses (online and in the classroom) did you take at LCC this term?

Response	Average	Total
1	27%	7
2	8%	2
3	27%	7
4	31%	8
5 or more	8%	2

Total	100%	26/26

6. How did you learn about this course?

Response	Average	Total
the lcc online course catalog	58%	15
i searched expresslane for any available online course	35%	9
other	8%	2

Total	100%	26/26

7. Consider the relevance of this class to your degree program and/or life in general, overall quality of product and delivery, value for your tuition dollar, etc.

Well Above Average

Above Average

Average

Below Average

Well Below Average

I have not taken any other courses at LCC or elsewhere

How does this course compare to all other courses you have taken at LCC (including online, hybrid, traditional, and telecourse classes)?

2.3

How does this online course compare relative to other online courses you have taken at LCC?

2.7

How does this online course compare relative to other online courses you have taken at any institution?

3.7

8. Would you recommend this course to other students?

Response	Average	Total
i would highly recommend this course	19%	5
i would recommend this course	65%	17
i would not recommend this course	15%	4

Total	100%	26/26

9. Do you have or regularly use any of the following?

Yes

iPod or other MP3 player

1.2

cell phone

1.0

laptop computer

1.0

your own website

1.9

a Twitter account

1.8

a Facebook/MySpace (or other social networking) account

1.1

a Flickr/Picassa/Photobucket (or other picture sharing) account

1.8

10. Rate how each of the following was a positive aspect of this course for you.

Very Worthwhile

Worthwhile

Not Very Worthwhile

Worthless

How Interesting It Was/What I Learned

1.5

It Allowed Me To Earn Credits In A Convenient Manner

1.8

I Like The Online Venue For Communicating With My Instructor And Classmates

1.8

The George Herring "Longest War" textbook

1.6

The Christian Appy "Patriots" textbook

1.4

The Vietnam War DVDs

1.8

The (private) Assignments

1.7

The (public) Forums

2.0

The Accuracy in Media Videos

2.1

The Soldiers stories audio file

1.7

The POW video and website pictures

1.6

The Fog of War video

1.8

The Vietnam Legacies video

1.8

11. What recommendations would you suggest in order to improve this course?

#	Response
1	on the forums there was too much fat. students would get on there and basically just summarize an entire reading. i felt a lot of times like asking people if they had any thoughts on the matter or if the were just gonna go over what i already read. to many students logging in and just trying to get points rather than actually contribute to the disscussion.
1	i hated that material was due at 9 pm. trying to juggle homework while working and going to school 5 days a week is a pain. sometimes you only have time available in the evenings, especially on like wednesdays.
1	more of a structured format. i'm more used to powerpoint lectures.
1	nothing i can really think of.
1	i feel there is noting that needs to be changed in this class its all right and perfect.
1	i found that this course took up numerous hours of the week and it was very stressful. i understand the need for spending the hours but it was a lot of information to try and retain for the tests. i feel the grammar was graded a little harder on the assignments than it should have been being as this was a history class and the grammar in some of the assignments made by the professor weren\\\'t as up to par as they should have been.
1	it would have helped if the final exam study list had been specific to exam questions. i dont want to study the whole textbook for the final.
1	forums were not always the most informative and created a very long and unorganized way of learning. i felt that most of the information posted was simply regurgitated from the videos or texts. perhaps by limiting the questions or topics for the forums, students would be able to bring more personal interpretations to the table. overall, it really just felt like participants in my group were throwing information up and not actually conversing or discussing ideas. i didn\'t feel that these forums were worth the time i invested, considering the overall outcome. i did really enjoy the \'assignments\'. this allowed an opportunity to make a connection to the information on a more personal level, which will stick with me much longer than plain dates, facts and themes. putting a human face on some of the larger issues throughout the war was not only interesting but drew me further into learning.
1	nothing
1	this is a hard course actually. my only thought is the forums where really not a lot of help, they were more opinion based which our grading plays a big part in. i did not like that such a big percentage of our grade was based on that.
1	i really didn\'t like that we were given information that we assumed was correct (because this is a college course, where we\'re supposed to learn things presented to us) and then was told that it was wrong based on presentational bias. while being able to differentiate bias and opinion between fact is an important skill in life, i do not believe that a college course where we are required to know specific facts about the vietnam war was an appropriate place to try to teach that lesson. if we\'re supposed to learn correct facts, why teach us biased information, tell us it\'s wrong, reteach, and then test us on the "correct" information? it makes it needlessly confusing. but on the other hand, i understand that there aren\'t a lot of sources of information on the vietnam war that isn\'t biased. in that case, those materials should not be used at all, but if they have to be, then tell us up front that the material is biased and here is a set of information that is relevant and correct instead of pulling out the rug from underneath us.
1	put up the next week's homework assignments even earlier. also, i would make sure the student knows it is important to get the assignment for (as an example) week 5 done during week 4. it's almost like the assignments for that week, especially reading, needed to be done before that week even started.
1	i would say being a little more lenient in the grading of the private assignments. a lot of work went into them between reading the appy book and then trying to tie various stories together to create a theme and then write on it. they were worthwhile but difficult assignments. also, the midterm was extremely hard. some questions made it difficult to understand what was being asked. i completed all reading and viewing assignments and filled out and spent a lot of time studying the study guide and yet found that i did not feel i knew the answers to many questions on the exam. this is shown too in the 12% curve that had to be given (which i am very thankful for). as much surrounding the war is open to interpretation, i would make sure the questions at least are not. i would suggest focusing on people, places, events, reasons, and prevailing attitudes to avoid confusion on the part of students.
1	i think the time for turning in assignments should be different, usually people taking online classes have other obligations during the week, and day time that is why they cant make it to campus. most of my other classes were due on a sunday night or monday night which made it really nice to have the entire weekend to dedicate to studies.
1	videos more accesible
1	get involved in the discussions more yourself, instead of just coming in when we have something wrong.
1	listing the assignments and their deadlines in a more clear manner.. i found it a little more difficult to keep track of the deadlines in this course because of the separate deadline link. maybe a course calendar would be a good idea? or giving the deadlines on each assignment and showing them when you click on the "assignments" link.
1	i think the only thing which i would suggest would be that the teacher could make the dvds more important to the class and make sure it is clear what you supposed to learn from them. i felt that i was never driven to watch them because they weren\'t very connected and repeated all the info we had been learning already in class. i also think it would have been useful to have the teacher participate in the forums i think it might have helped to have an instructor interact with the students.
1	first of all, the instructor was great. i was only troubled with the discussions. it seems to me that online courses are harder since there is no human interaction to bring about thoughts or ideas. it seemed a bit slow for discussions and made me very uninterested in the subject; however, i am probably just not cut out for online courses.
1	honestly, i loved the class. i thought it was absolutely fascinating and i can't think of how it can be improved. it was challenging, informative and i can't wait to take more classes like it.
1	i would suggest that maybe you assign a few different students to write about a few different things or more opinion questions in the forums because often times when we all were writing about the same thing it was hard to make any good responses to people because we were all saying basically the same thing. also, at the beginning of the term it wasn't clear to me that our assignments were supposed to be formal papers. i was under the impression that it was just answering the questions, i got heavily marked down for that because i didn't understand the assignment. also, i feel some of you expectations were a bit high, this is an online course and you do lose some of the expectations of the work, i felt that the work load that was so continuous was a bit uncharacteristic for online classes. usually with my other online classes the due date for anything is at the end of the week so you can work on it whenever, but in this class there were often due dates in the middle of the week and pressure to do something in the class every day.
1	cant think of any.
1	i actually didn\'t notice the test reviews until a few days before the midterm. i just saw his comment saying to "study everything we been over so far." made for a hard midterm.
1	i would like to see the test after scoring, so i may review what i missed.
1	n/a
1	have a more clear layout for when things are due. it takes a few weeks to really follow what the instructor wants.

12. Did I forget to ask any other relevant question(s)? Is there anything else you'd like to add?

#	Response
1	you did a good job over going over all the key issues. i can't think of anything that was really missing.
1	i liked the class more and more as the term progressed.
1	nope
1	i have just come to realize i am a much better student in the classroom than online.
1	no you got it all.
1	no other questions
1	100 questions for the exam was too much. how about 50--2 point questions?
1	i did find some of the weekly assignment breakdowns confusing and frustrating. for example, if the assignment had a deadline, instead of having to click through to find the list of deadlines, it could be helpful to simplify this by just including the deadline. also, 9 pm deadlines for an online class is somewhat restricting. most people taking this type of course are doing most of their schooling at night or on the weekends and 9 pm felt really rushed and cut back some of the additional time i would have spent studying or focusing on this class. night time hours can be some of an online students most productive time.
1	nothing
1	this was a very useful class, not necissarily for my degree but it was a class i think every one needs to take. it opens your eyes and was a real eye opener. i was very interested even though i did not do the best, i do understand it. the instructor was the quickest and most helpful from any instructor i have ever had.
1	nope.
1	how did the tests relate to the material we studied? i feel like the midterm was not very relevant to what we focused on during the first half of the term. and yes, i did study very well for the test, but many questions seemed pulled from out of nowhere. also, the true/false questions on the midterm where extremely difficult because it was a whole paragraph that i had to decide was either all true or one small thing false. maybe make the statements shorter? i liked this course! i have had a difficult time with learning history, but this course was very well done and allowed for me to really understand.
1	i felt the work load for this class was huge. at the same time, it was one of my favorite classes. i really enjoyed the material, in particular the appy book. thank you for choosing to supply us with the materials that you did. i learned an incredible amount about the vietnam war in just the ten weeks.
1	no
1	no
1	i felt that there was a lot to take in and not a lot of time to do it. i think a reading guide would have been helpful. like the guides that were created for the first six videos that we watched. it would make finals less stressful as well as the forums more coherent and organized.
1	no... thank you for a great course overall :)
1	i don't think you forgot anything, the questions seem to be very clear and thought out.
1	i would gladly take any of professor escobar's courses as long as they are not online courses.
1	i'd just like to thank you for such a great class. it was everything i had hoped for when i saw it was offered. i was excited to take it, and it was one of the most enjoyable classes i've ever taken. it was extremely time intensive but that was something i was expecting. i would have loved to have learned more about the weaponry used in vietnam, but i don't know where or how that could be included. overall, awesome class mr. escobar!
1	i would just like to say that i think this class would have been better in a classroom format rather than online. i think the class would have been more interesting when you had all the student there in person to discuss what we were learning. i also would have feel that the course load would have been better for the classroom.
1	no
1	no i enjoyed the class and the topics we went over. it explained the vietnam war in depth that i wouldn't have learned on my own.
1	this was a tough class for me. i have reflected long and hard on what made it such a challenge. i think it was a combination of things; the time-line (many of these people are still around), being alive during the vietnam war and not understanding what was going on. we covered a lot of material in a short period of time, the violence and bloodshed was hard to watch, and at times i found it difficult to find something that i was wanting to refer back to (too many places to look). an example would be forum 3. i wanted to review the fog of war video to respond to a posting, and found it difficult to locate. for me, it would have been nice to have it on the video and reading assignment for this week (main page) or listed under resources or class handouts. i did locate it again, but it was after the fact. that being said, sometimes the most challenging things are also the most rewarding.
1	n/a
1	no it was just fine.

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Student Evaluation of Instruction & Course