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Re:Student Course Evaluations Get an 'F' by _delirium on Saturday September 27, 2014 @07:28AM (#8376726)
Yes, I used something like this as a student as well, and found it much more useful than a numerical rating. In cases where there were enough thoughtful reviews, it let me figure out (with admittedly some error) that certain professors tended to teach in a style that either was or wasn't attractive to me. Which is not the same as "good" or "bad"; the kinds of courses I find most valuable were not the ones everyone would find most valuable.

Sometimes even negative comments would give me information that I should take a course. I remember one detailed negative review that complained that the lectures were generally too low on covering information needed to successfully complete the assignments, mostly referring to aspects of C++ (it was a "data structures" course using C++). Instead, the review complained, the lectures were too high-level and theoretical and not helpful in writing code. Which is exactly how I like my lectures: I want lectures to give me a map of the landscape to help orient me towards what's important, how things connect, and where I should look for more information. And I really hate the kind of class that spends all the class time belaboring details of what I should type into a C++ source file, which I can look up myself. If it had been a numerical rating, this very useful piece of positive information (for me) would've been treated negatively!

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