Administering Student Evaluations
Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs)
For full information about Student Evaluations of Teaching (SETs), please see:
SETs Project Overview and History
Evaluations
At the end of the semester, all instructors of First-Year Writing Seminars are required to have their students complete online evaluations of the class.
Starting in Fall 2026, the university has adopted for all courses a standard “Core” set of 18 survey questions, which can be found here:
Each student in a First-Year Writing Seminar will also see, appended to the “Core,” the following program-level questions. Students will click a radio button describing their level of agreement, from “Strongly Agree” to “Strongly Disagree,” with the following statements about potential learning outcomes in an expository writing course:
In this seminar, we spent an appropriate amount of time
focused on writing
focused on revising
In class, in conferences, and in comments, the instructor emphasized
developing strong, evidence-based arguments.
coherence: focusing an essay on a significant problem, hypothesis, claim or idea.
organization: paragraph structure, transitions, etc.
working with source material properly.
revising essays to enhance the reader’s experience of interest, clar ity and persuasiveness.
editing essays to catch mistakes and refine sentences.
PLEASE NOTE: the above items do not represent what all FWS instructors are “supposed” to teach. Rather, they name values or learning goals that individual instructors might stress differently. (See “The Uses of End-of-Semester Evaluations,” below.)
Then students will see a question inviting more detail about strategies and experiences specific to small writing seminars:
Describe how one or two aspects of the course—such as writing assignments, conferences, class discussion, peer review, course topic and readings, group work, presentations, teacher feedback—contributed to your development as a writer.
Finally, a question about their experiences (pre)enrolling for First-Year Writing Seminars:
The main reason(s) I enrolled in this seminar (please check all that apply):
I found the topic/course description interesting.
It was recommended by a friend/advisor.
It was offered at a time open in my schedule.
I could not get into one of my top preferences.
Other
Please comment/explain briefly:
Administering student evaluations
At the appropriate point in the semester, you will be notified about the process of administering these online evaluations. Students will receive emails with links to the survey for each of their classes. We strongly recommend—seconded by the College—that you set aside class time for students to respond during the last several days of the semester. It is in your interests to encourage a high rate of participation, and devoting class time to evaluations signals that the process is important and student responses are taken seriously.
Since the survey is compatible with laptops, tablets, and mobile phones, any student with one of these devices will be able to participate on the day in question; moreover, those absent can easily log in and submit their responses later.
We do not recommend leading explicit discussions about the merits or problems of your class. The most outspoken student could take over and set the agenda. Students themselves can be surprised to find out how much they don’t agree when they write their comments without previous discussion. Written evaluations allow the voices of quieter students to be heard.
While students are completing evaluations, you need not leave the room. Doing so might allow student discussions of how to respond to the questions to develop, sometimes setting up an unproductive agenda that didn’t exist beforehand. To maintain order and silence, you can remain in a corner of the classroom while students are answering surveys. However, the students' responses must not pass under your eyes; you can assure students you are not trying to guess who said what, reminding them that their responses are anonymous and will not be available to you until after the final grade deadline has passed.
The Uses of End-of-Semester Evaluations
The results of evaluations will become available to you individually and directly, via a secure electronic “Dashboard” at https://teachingevals.cornell.edu/, within a short period after the final grade deadline has passed. You will find it possible to review the information in multiple ways and contexts, preserved for your future reference.
These evaluations can be useful to instructors in at least three ways:
1) The evaluation form itself provides useful information about course content and methods. Look over the survey (the “Core” questions and additional “FWS” questions above) while setting up your course before the semester begins, and during it while you are teaching. The form also provides suggestions for terminology that you can teach students: for instance, students as writers should become acquainted with terms such as “audience,” “thesis,” and “evidence.” New knowledge and skills “stick” better when students have the language to name them explicitly. You may want to emphasize a goal of community and “belonging,” or concrete “practice” of skills, or other values named in the survey.
2) Reviewing the evaluations after the end of the semester (alone or with a course leader, colleague or mentor) can provide important insights into how to improve your teaching in coming semesters.
3) Providing evidence of your improvement in areas about which students have been critical may impress future employers with your ability to grow as a teacher and to respond intelligently and seriously to criticism.
Above all, we urge you not to focus solely on numerical or quantitative measures, especially as a way of ranking yourself against other teachers. The Knight Institute does not engage in such comparisons and discourages administrators or employers from doing so uncritically. For instance, if you intentionally did not emphasize “editing to catch mistakes,” then it is no detriment to you if students accurately “disagree” with a hypothetical statement that you did. The questions—especially those specific to FWSs—do not represent a set of outcomes that all FWS instructors are expected to teach. They do not represent a ruler used to measure all teachers against some single standard or put them into competition against one another. More detailed answers to “narrative” questions can provide more context, but do not let the outlier of a single disgruntled response distort your sense of students’ important takeaways. You should interpret your SET results against the goals you set for yourself; your reflections upon these results and the changes you decide to make are more important than any raw data.
Please see SETs Guidance for Chairs and Deans for further information about how student-evaluation results should and should not be interpreted. These recommendations include the context of such ongoing self-evaluation and reflection as are suggested below.
Optional Mid-Term Evaluation
The Benefits of Mid-Term Student Feedback
Doing some research on your students during the semester can be more productive (certainly for that semester) than end-of-term evaluations. Such self-evaluation is optional and can be administered at your own discretion.
Optional Mid-Term Evaluation
[Suggested “template” evaluation for instructors’ use only, in paper-based written form]
FWS Mid-Term Evaluation
When you answer these six questions, you might keep in mind the following topics: in-class discussion of and work on writing; discussion of readings; reading assignments; writing assignments; conferences; feedback on your writing.
- Here are some things I think are going well in this course—let’s keep doing them:
- Here are some suggestions and recommendations for the remainder of the semester:
- Here are some personal reflections about my work on writing so far this semester:
- Here are some personal reflections about the reading load so far this semester:
- Here are some personal reflections about how well I think the reading and writing assignments relate to each other:
- Here are some personal reflections about my work/life circumstances so far this semester:
Instructor Reflection
A program remains strong only as long as its instructors are actively engaged in reflecting on and improving their teaching. To encourage the process of reflection, instructors are provided with a “FWS Instructor’s Reflection Form” that they can fill out while their students complete the student evaluations (or later). You may of course want to include your responses in your own teaching journal to draw on for future reflection or for presentation of your teaching development to others.
FWS Instructor Reflection
Your name: _________________________
Seminar dept, number, & section: _______________________
Seminar title: ___________________________________________________
While your students are filling out their evaluation forms, please take time for some reflection of your own. Of course, you can also fill out the form in advance. Your completed form should be returned directly to Amanda Munson electronically via email to anm94@cornell.edu.
This information will be kept confidential within the Knight Institute. We are asking that you submit these responses both so we can continue to be responsive to the needs of students and instructors and so we have necessary evidence when we are subject to external review that instructors set and reflect on learning goals. You may want to include your responses in your own teaching journal to draw on for future reflection or for presentation of your teaching development to others.
The questions are simple:
- You undoubtedly had goals for your students’ learning. What goals do you think most of your students achieved, because of your course and your teaching? Be as specific as you can—feel free to congratulate yourself for successful teaching methods.
- Most of us find that our students don’t achieve all the goals we hoped they would. Give one example of a goal you believe many students did not achieve and explain how you know they didn’t achieve it. With this in mind, what might you change the next time you teach this course or one like it?
- Please give an example of a change you made during the semester in order to improve students’ learning. What evidence made you decide to make the change?
- How have some of the following sources of assistance helped you to define, refine, and execute your goals (e.g., Writing 7100; the Peer Collaboration Program; the Faculty Seminar in Writing Instruction; the Essay Response Consultation Program; Instruction Librarians; the Johnson Museum; course leaders; the Archive of Teaching Materials; The Indispensable Reference for Teachers of First-Year Writing Seminars; The Elements of Teaching Writing; Cornell Center for Teaching Innovation)? Please be specific; and of course, feel free to make suggestions.
