How to Write Self Evaluations
In any given course, a faculty member might give you specific instructions about how to evaluate yourself for that course. You should follow their instructions. If they do not give specific instructions, or if you want to get better at self-reflection, below are a few different approaches.
Pick the prompts that get you thinking about your own learning and experiences in the course. In all cases, be specific and concrete.
- Consider the objectives of the course as written in the syllabus and write about how you did with regards to each of them – what did you learn, what helped you, and what do you need to focus on for further improvement?
- Ask yourself a series of questions to get you writing about your learning experiences in the course more generally. For example:
- What did I learn?
- How well did I learn it?
- What does my learning in this course mean for my Divisional work?
- So what now? What do I see as the next steps in my learning?
- Address a number of specific issues by giving concrete, specific examples.
- Did I do more or less than was expected by the instructor? By me? Why, or why not?
- What do I now understand best about this subject? Least well?
- What are my strongest and weakest points as a student? What did I do to improve the weak points? What will I do next?
- What do I need to learn next about this subject?
- What was most satisfying about the class? Most frustrating? Your responsibility for each?
- Has the course irritated you? Stimulated you? Has it made you uncomfortable about yourself, about society, about the future, about learning? Are you the same person who began the class ten weeks ago? What’s different?
- What did you expect to learn? What did you actually learn? More or less, and why?
Note that any of these sets of questions can be used in all your courses & learning activities.