Results of the Unit of Study Evaluation, 2001

What students thought of the unit of study

 

By the numbers

Q. The teaching in this unit of study helped me to learn effectively

Response
Number
Percentage
Strongly Agree
38
33.9%
Agree
67
59.8%
Neutral
5
4.5%
Disagree
1
0.9%
Strongly Disagree
1
0.9%
Q. Overall I was satisfied with the quality of this unit of study
Response
Number
Percentage
Strongly Agree
47
45.6%
Agree
51
49.5%
Neutral
3
2.9%
Disagree
1
1%
Strongly Disagree
1
1%

 

 

Student comments
  • "It was fun"
  • "Very interesting material, well presented, plenty of room for discussion of complex issues and interesting blending of disciplines"
  • "The lecturer and tutor were both clearly very passionate about the topic. Both were highly professional, focused and dedicated. This course was run with excellent organization. I felt the lectures were of a particularly high standard and always interesting. A brilliant course that I would highly recommend"
Student suggestions ~ and what I did about them
The tutorial readings were too long The readings have been revised, producing a shorter course reader (353 pages in 2002 compared to 488 pages in 2001)
The material covered in the lectures was not directly assessed The take home exam has been redesigned. The second of the two sections is now made up of questions drawn from the topics and issues discussed in lectures and tutorials. The questions are intended to encourage a breadth of knowledge about childhood and youth in modern America. The outlines of each lecture and suggested readings on that topic that are posted to the unit of study website each week provide a place to begin preparation for this section of the exam.
The content of the lectures and tutorials was biased toward female childhood I reviewed the course content, and could not find this bias. To the extent that there is one, it reflects the subjects and issues that concerned Americans during the period covered by the course. In revising the tutorial readings I have tried to ensure that they deal with both male and female children: the new tutorial on race and civil rights includes excerpts from the autobiographies of Malcolm X and Anne Moody, and the new readings on Barbie include an account of how boys respond to the toy. The readings on schooling and on the body also deal with both boys and girls.
There should be a choice of topics for the tutorial paper I am still working on this. I want to continue to have this assignment based on material we discuss in tutorials, which limits the possible choices. In the future I will look at changing the tutorial readings in the first weeks of the course so they will provide more sources that could be used in a tutorial paper.