|
The students had overall positive feedback about the course and it was mostly as the students expected it. Some students thought it was too little topics about experiments and expected more experimental work during the course. Student liked the lecturer and that it was so easy to ask questions and get help, one comment was "The level of dedication in the teaching and supervision throughout the course is fantastic".
Good lectures and good literature but some students wanted to see more pictures in the slides to illustrate the different topics. The simulations was mostly considered positive, the simulations improved the understanding of the topics in the course. It was very well received that the home duty and exercises connected to each other, and the home duty as well as the presentation was a good form of examination.
There was comments about too little overlap between this course and MAXC11, perhaps it was not clear how the courses connected to eachother. However it was noticable that students who didn't take MAXC11 had more difficulties understanding the topics in this course in the beginning. Combination with the basic optic courses as Fysikum was positive.
MAXM16/EXTN90, HT2-2011, course evaluation report
TEACHER’S INTERPRETATION OF THE RESULTS
The questionnaire form was provided to the students (4 LU incl. 1 PhD student, and 4 LTH students) before the presentations (week 2/2012). The questionnaires could be left to the sealed voting box to guarantee anonymity. The results, as I see them, are shown below together with my response to the feedback.
The first question was used to find out if the course provided such content the students expected. The feedback was positive and included wish for more experimental laborations (1 opinion) and more about instruments themselves (1 opinion). RESPONSE: From practical point of view, including experimental laborations within the user period of the laboratory is extremely difficult and the situation will quite likely remain as such. It is possible to increase the role of actual (measuring) instruments slightly without compromising other content of the course.
Questions two and three were aimed to evaluate the lectures and the course literature, respectively. The general feedback was encouraging but there were few opinions about text in slides. RESPONSE: At present, the slides form the literature in large extent. For that, the slides include text so much that the handouts are self-explaining. In future, there will be a separate book-like compendium, or alternatively the course will be based on a recent text book and the slides can be tailored more to emphasis the key points at each lecture. Compendium/text book based course is expected to reality for lectures HT2/2012.
This semester the home duties and the exercise were used as an exam. Questions four and five were used to collect opinion about this examination method and to find pros and cons with it. Here all the opinions were supportive for the examination method; it was also pointed out (1 opinion) that students concentrate more on material that directly helps solving the duties than the material as a whole. RESPONSE: According to feedback, I would evaluate home duty exam as student friendly. It is true that this method does not force the students to read everything but on the other hand, active participation to the lectures was expected (and realized – over all participation was ca. 85%) and even with a traditional exam, there is no obligation (and quite rarely even a need) to read everything.
The students for this course have increasingly different background both in terms of studies in general and MAX-lab courses specifically. This was reflected also in replies concerning connection to other courses: the opinions ranged practically from ‘not much new’ to ‘too low overlap (with maxc11)’. RESPONSE: As long as this course is given to so wide audience it will be difficult to meet all the demands. However, going to compendium/text book solves some of these issues: there will be more background information available for those with less extensive background and further material for those who are familiar with the main content of the course.
The last question was left for other comments and although being positive, two things came out also here: another type of exam and choosing a text book to the course (1 opinion). RESPONSE: Both of these issues are addressed earlier above.
The questionnaires could be left to the sealed voting box to guarantee anonymity, this was done during the presentations, which served partly as an exam.