Teaching evaluations

Ah! A new teaching semester!

No more cupcakes done since the last to open up the season, but a number of hours taught nonetheless.

It's great to be a touch less panicky and I feel it is opening great doors for me.

Also, I finally received the encoded results of the teaching evaluations from last year. Thought they might help me pick up priorities for this year (so next year I can earn many brownie points for my kind-of-like-tenure application).

And, well, the top one priority (or the part where I scored worst, if you prefer) is that I am BORING!

My classes lack dynamism and my teaching is not stimulating or so do a majority (of a whole 25 or so students) think.

Mh, let me think. Could that be related to the fact that I was teaching a whole bunch of completely new classes last year, in a big panicky frenzy, working until 1 or 2 am then jumping on the train at 6.30 to go give them? I'm hoping that is part of it.

I've picked a series of practical things that I figured myself and from the evaluation could improve the whole thing, and make it tighter and more "dynamic":
-improve slides: more illustrations, less usless crap, better structure;
-I've gone back to the conceptual maps stuff;
-I'm trying to tighten the structure;
-I'm trying to give better context, eg by using newspaper clippings.

I think I am more relaxed this year and a touch more confident. And, it has to be said, the new students seem to be on whole more enthusiastic. I have good hopes, but still I did contact the pedagogy unit in the university (you wouldn't believe how big it is. We really have to be ultra crappy in this place, there's so many teachers for the teachers), and asked for help on the boredom issue. We'll see where this is taking us.