Two words

I just finished teaching another session of a course we have for senior testers. I always have a great time teaching this course and this was no exception. Adam Barr talks about The Cool of the Evening, and I can completely relate to the combination of relief, accomplishment, relaxation and reflection you feel when you wrap up the last session of a long class.

We always follow up with students a week or so after the course completes with a survey asking them questions about the material, instructor and logistics. It's something like 20 questions rated from "very satisfied" to "very dissatisfied". Although I regularly get good reviews based on these surveys, I still find them completely useless. Unless someone says something specific in one of the free form comment fields, there's nothing to capture the students true feelings, and nothing that I can turn into anything actionable.

This time, however, I tried a little experiment. As hinted at in some of my previous posts, I have been taking some time lately to think about my career goals (there's a whole other post around this that I will likely never get to). Anyway, one of the things I've been toying with is coming up with one word that describes me (yes - it sounds a bit new-age-ish, but bear with me). I haven't figured out the word yet, but in the interim, I thought I'd get some ideas from my students. During the last session, I asked them to write two words on a post it note and leave it on the table when they left. The first word was their impression of the class, and the second was their impression of me (how can I describe myself if I don't know how others perceive me?). Anyway, the results didn't really help me with my one-word description, but I thought the results were very interesting.

The one word comments on the course were almost all positive. Words included interesting, perspective, worthwhile (x3), relevant, useful (x3), and informative (x4). The two negative (ish) comments were both two word comments; too long. The course is eighteen hours spread over six three-hour sessions. There are some things I've been thinking about trimming, so I may trim things for a future offering.

As for comments about me, I was pleasantly surprised. Comments included knowledgeable, passionate, interesting (x2), and enthusiastic(x2). I was surprised and pleased to see that, without any sort of collaboration or preparation for this exercise, that 6 students wrote engaging as a one word description of me. While this isn't the word I would use to describe my general role, in an instructor role, I think it's one of the best things I would ever want to hear.

I don't know if I'll do the experiment again, but I did find it interesting, and it only took a minute of the class to pull off. If you can think of a one-word description of me, feel free to add it to the comments or mail it to me. I guess this is a good test to see if community server has a filter for bad words.

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 28, 2007
  Assuming the other words that have been used already are disqualified, I would venture "Curious"I have seen you talk about different new things that you want to try or have tried already - a constant attempt at reinvention. And I love that attitude!  
• Anonymous
  July 31, 2007
  Eager