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 Activities Evaluation: Semester reporting meetings

Evaluation: Semester reporting meetings

Brief description

At semester reporting meetings, teachers and students from all courses in a degree programme get together and review the teaching activities of the previous semester. The meeting is held between two semesters and takes the student evaluations of the completed courses as its point of departure. The tone of the meeting should be informal and constructive, and space must be given to address both well-functioning and problematic elements in the courses.

Motivation for the activity and required outcome

The purpose of the activity is to pass on experience from one semester to the next, to create a clear common thread between the courses in the programme, and to ensure that both students and teachers feel seen and heard. By performing the activity, you as a teacher will get access to the experience harvested from previous courses, which may help you develop and improve your own teaching.

 

Perform the activity

The semester reporting meetings require that your section is involved, including the head of section or consultant, as well as the individual teachers. The activity is therefore divided into two performing roles:

  • The section:
    • The activity requires that invitations for the semester reporting meetings are circulated in the section. If this is a new activity in your section, speak to your head of section about launching the initiative. It also requires that one teacher and one student representative from each course attend the meeting. The meeting takes place between two semesters and is based on experience and evaluations from the previous course.
    • The head of section or consultant must compile the teachers’ digital evaluations with qualitative comments in a joint report and circulate this to everyone before the meeting.
    • At the meeting, you should review the semester reports together, one by one. Assign 15 minutes for each report.
    • When each course has been reviewed, you should all discuss the entire semester as well as the entire workload and the distribution of this.
    • Minutes should be taken, and these should be circulated to everyone in the section after the meeting.
  • The individual teacher
    • You as a teacher should choose one student representative from the course who will attend the meeting together with you. You should do so before the last teaching session before the exam period.
    • Before the meeting you should prepare a qualitative report on your course, taking as your point of departure the oral and digital evaluations of the course. Include your course handbook and the qualitative evaluation of you as a teacher. NOTE: This must be signed by the student representative. Then send the report to the head of section.
    • In preparation of the semester reporting meeting, you should review the joint report prepared by the head of section.
    • When reviewing your report at the meeting, you should open the discussion by adding a few comments to the report. The students should then be invited to give their comments, and finally everyone else is free to speak.

Options:

  • If several teachers and students from the degree programme are prevented from attending, the activity may be performed by the teachers from the same teaching level. This will make the activity less extensive, and the meetings will be shorter.

Activities

    Examples of Practice

      You will need:

      Worth considering:

      • Are there certain parts of your report you wish to focus on or discuss at the meeting?
      • How do you handle a situation where your student representative is dissatisfied with your course and criticises this during the meeting?
      • How can you contribute to creating an atmosphere at the meeting that allows space for giving and receiving feedback and makes all teachers and students feel involved?
      Revised 09.10.2023
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      AU Educate