Archive of Teaching evaluations

Teaching evaluations are the subject of animated debates among academics. The burning question is their real value in estimating teaching abilities, the argument being that a popular instructor is not necessarily an effective instructor. With various online evaluation databases springing around, there is also the question of proper statistics. Indeed, it can be argued that online evaluations are entered only by a rather selected (and a rather selective) group of individuals that generally represent only the extreme, I-hate-it or I-love-it, views but leave the most populated middle ground out.

UCLA and its Math Department administers regular evaluations in the final weeks of each quarter in which all students present in the class have a chance to provide feedback through both a numerical rating and verbal comments. The evals are collected before the final grade is assigned but their transcript is only shown to the instructor after the grades have been submitted. While the value of the numerical rating remains debatable because of the absence of a well defined reference scale, the comments offer a valuable shapshot of how the students felt about the class when they were right in the middle of it.

Here are the scans of the teaching evals for classes that I taught at UCLA since 2002.

Calculus:	31B-2002   32A-2002   31B-2003   32A-2003   31B-2004   32A-2007   32B-2007   31A-2010   31B-2011   32A-2011
Upper division:	170A-2002   170B-2004   191-2007   170A-2009
Graduate probability:	275A-2003   275B-2003   275A-2005   275B-2005   275C-2006   275A-2006
Topics courses:	285K-2005   285K-2005   285K-2006     285K-2011

For students reading these pages in the hope to somehow "figure out" a cheap way how to succeed in my classes: Generally, the only way is to work hard from day one. I will do the best I can to help you with the rest.