Student Opinions of Teaching

I got my copies of my students' opinions of my classes. Since I have such small classes, one disgruntled student can really throw off the numbers. And this semester, apparently, I had a very disgruntled student. What really bothers me about this is that he never said anything to me. He never indicated there was a problem, and I never picked up on it in class.

Once I got past my initial knee-jerk defensive reactions, though, I realized that this explained something that had been worrying me. One of my students basically did nothing at the end of the semester. Up until then, and in previous semesters, he had been an extremely conscientious student. I was really concerned by his apparent lack of concern this time around, and I was worried that there was something wrong that I didn't know about. Turned out I was right, but at least now I know. Or at least I think I know.

And yes, since I am sure you are wondering, the opinions are submitted anonymously and I only receive summaries of the numerical part and typed versions of their comments. As I said, though, I have very small classes!