Student evaluations at the end of the semester are important, but the information they provide is only valuable for the next semester. In addition, students have very little incentive to give constructive feedback at the end of the course, because their comments will not enhance their classroom experience. When we also take into consideration the natural shyness of students to ask questions when lost in class, and we end up with a major obstacle to good communication.

I still haven’t found solution to the silent student problem, but I do a number of things so I can improve the contact between me and my students. For example, on the first day of class I ask my students to fill in an information sheet so I can get to know them—their interests, majors, math background, and, most importantly, to find out what is that they liked (or didn’t like) about courses taken in the past, and what are their expectation in regard to my course.

Next, after their first exam I offer my students the opportunity to take an anonymous survey in which they can tell me what is that they like about the course so far, and what is it that they don’t like about it and would like to see changed [ http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SYNQW52 password: gobulls]. I keep this survey open until the end of the semester so I can continuously get feedback about my work. Since I organize the contents of my courses online, students always have the option to drop me an anonymous email using the contact forms on the course website [visit contact page here].

My end of semester evaluations are usually very flattering. You can see some them here: Principles of Microeconomics [evaluations] ; History of Economic Thought [evaluations] ; Principles of Macroeconomics [evaluations]. However, most of the feedback that I receive during the semester is not — and, in fact, some of the most insightful suggestions on how to change, organize, and improve my courses have come from my midterm evaluations.