The Necessity of Evaluations

I would like to take this time to talk about a topic that I did not consider when I first started teaching. Mary asked Abby and I near the last class as to how we were going to gauge how well the students learned from our activities. This was a point that I constantly think of when I am in my college classes listening to a boring lecture, but something that never even crossed my mind once I became the teacher. It certainly gave me a new perspective on things. I think that sometimes, as teachers, we assume that everyone understands the material as long as they participate at the given moment. However, as we were asked to consider on our syllabus evaluation, some activities simply have less impact in the long-run. Since horticulture is not a specifically driven topic in young education today, I think it was very important to evaluate how impactful our few lessons had on the students. To determine this, Abby and I asked the students to anonymously answer a set of questions on a piece of paper. We asked such questions as what was your favorite plant family, what did you enjoy learning about, and what you want to know more about. Not only did this allow the students to freely express their opinions without repercussion, but it also gave us a better idea of what we can do better next time.