Small Group Instructional Diagnosis (SGID)

November 5, 1999
9:00 class
Individual Responses
(4 women, 11 men)

Dr. Mills Kelly

1. What works well in this class? What do you like? What helps you learn?

The participation/discussion style in class is good. To study documents before class, then come and discuss them with others can be very beneficial. Like the topical approach very much.

The opportunity to gather all info for ourselves is very helpful. This is very appealing. The documents are actual evidence of what we are discussing and not some historian’s perspectives; this allows us to come to our own conclusions concerning a topic.

The pace and amount of material is good. The ability to learn what you want and to focus on what one thinks is most important. Also the capability to look at primary sources is very helpful and causes interest in the subject.

Reading the material before and then having class discussion. You get to hear to hear people’s thoughts, ideas, and points of view that maybe you hadn’t thought of while reading. The material is more interesting when I hear what other people think about it. Also, Dr. Kelly is excited and likes what he is teaching. That makes the class and learning about it better. I like how he mixes discussion with lecture. It keeps the class from being boring and stagnant. I like the web page a lot. The resources and help from that are great.

I think not having to write 20 or more pages of notes for tests. That way it takes some pressure off. Also I like that we actually look at documents that relate to what we are discussing at the time. It helps to understand it better and relate it better. I also like the discussions instead of just lecture after lecture.

The online readings do work well for me, and the assignments of writing a paper instead of taking tests; I think we get more out of writing than tests. So I basically like writing papers instead of taking tests. It helps me know what we are talking about in class, and makes me think on what we talked about, and overall learned.

Group work. Class discussions. Does a good job presenting the material.

Lecture, followed by a debate. Mr. Kelly is such a great orator that I retain most of what he says. With the debate format I can reenhance that knowledge and further the process. I enjoy not having tests, but writing papers. The syllabus was superb.

I am glad he has resources on the web page that we look at to write the papers. That way, we don’t have to research looking fore sources to write about, for they are already there. The lectures are very understandable as well, and I like them because they are helpful in giving an overview of the sources we research. The book, along with the web page and the lectures, is helpful as well.

One thing that works well is when Mills Kelly lectures all period and gives us some notes on the board. One thing I like is the online discussion. I do not like getting called on in class or speaking up because I can think better when I just simply get on the on-line discussion and talk away. One thing that helps me learn a lot is writing papers and focusing on that topic. I also like that there are no tests because we don’t have to learn under pressure, but instead we can learn freely and have fun learning. I also like not having quizzes each week.

I like that there are not tests. I am personally not a good test taker and the paper writing is a much more efficient way for one to learn. I like how much group work we do. I think the best way to learn is from your peers. I like this class—learned a lot.

Discussions in class, there is a lot of opportunity to participate. I don’t like debates because I feel like I’m fighting sometimes. The online web page is helpful also because it’s organized and clear.

The way he tells us what we will be doing a few days in advance.

I like the fact that we study major people and events instead of non-important and less interesting people.

I learn best by reading the many other sources that Dr. Kelly has posted on the Internet.

Dr. Kelly also helps me learn because he knows a great deal of interesting things.

I like the idea and opportunity of working on Internet assignments. This gave me more experience in looking for primary sources and other data that was meaningful to our class. I like the fact that I could ask Dr. Kelly questions on our web site or even email him when I had a problem. I liked working with computers so this made this class more exciting than just learning from a history book.

When the class is divided up to cover different topics, then we discuss each group’s point of view on the subjects. This helps me learn the other sides to an issue as well as my own.

2. What does not work well? What does not help you learn? What do you not like?

I did not like the court trials; I think they confused me more than anything, because the lawyers would give information that would contradict other things.

I don’t like that there is a participation grade. I feel a lot of pressure to talk in class when I don’t want to. However the alternative of the online discussion really helps that.

Personally, I had problems in doing writing assignments that required only a one-page response. I mean, we had a lot of information on a certain subject and I had a hard time to put it in one page.

I hate to be called upon. Even if I know what I want to say, it never comes out that way when I am called upon. I would rather be given the chance to speak up on my own.

One thing that does not work well for me is getting called on in class. My mind goes blank whenever I get called on because all eyes are on me.

Everything is working well. There are no weak points in the class.

The email responses or on-line discussion. Although I love having a web site reference, leaving an email response is not as personable as I like, there is less chance of him knowing my face.

I don’t like the fact that he leaves it on us to read so much. But I am at the age where he should not have to baby-sit us.

What doesn’t work well for me is the group discussion, because usually it’s hard for me to speak out.

Sometimes the documents seem hard to relate to the paper we are writing. Some of the documents never really seem to answer clearly the questions asked.

Everything is going well. Sometimes, though, I get discouraged in the class discussion. Maybe because I didn’t really understand the reading, but that’s what the discussion is for so it all works out.

Some of the discussions in class don’t help. They are just time in which we try to prove a point or side that only we know about. It doesn’t help to learn all points or sides. Also the type of research we do doesn’t work. We try to imagine or postulate why something happened or we infer reasons, or we try to show connections between events. I would rather do research or investigations in which we discover little unknown facts about the events, instead of making assumptions or trying to connect events.

Class lecture does not work well for me, if you miss one day you are completely lost. This is how fast we are moving. I don’t feel the time given to each subject is adequate. I feel the subjects are too abstract.

Unclear on what he wants us to write about specifically.

Class participation is very poor. It is often obvious that few students have studied and prepared material for class and this greatly decreases the effectiveness of class discussion time. I am not sure the learning I receive from the writing assignments being the only application and diagnostic of knowledge learned from material/subject matter.

Not having as much notes, actual personal work, I see that I don’t recall/remember the information of previous topics.

3. What suggestions or recommendations do you have?

Poor class participation is the biggest area needing improvement. Obviously this is largely in the students’ not professor’s hands. But a better, stricter system of assuring participation might be implemented.

More documentary films, less lecture, maybe meeting in the lab every Friday to help gather info.

More time in a lecture, give more insight into the topics, better discussion formats.

I like the way the class is run and really can’t think any big suggestions or recommendations. I do think this class is better at teaching and learning things than most survey coursers.

Overall the class is well teached [sic], and very understandable.

I think you do a good job and I don’t think you should change anything. Maybe cut down a little on the reading.

None—great job.

Everything is fine. I especially enjoy Kelly’s outline of the class. You write one paper or so every two weeks, a big paper in the middle and at the end, and no quizzes in between.

It would be a good idea to give each of us a history question and answer it on the online discussion.

Instead of putting student who do not speak well on the spot in front of others, let those who want to respond speak up.

A more in depth outline being very specific attached to our syllabus.

I recommend that writing assignments be given with more time ahead of time. I mean, I had other projects with other classes and this was not good for time management.

I like when there are structured roles, like when we did the trial, because for some reason it was easier to prepare for--I think because everyone knew they would be picked on to talk and were prepared for it. I also thought a trial was an interesting thing to do because we made our own outcome up.

This will obviously tell you who is writing this, but a little bit more of a combination between your lectures and analyzing the documents. The reason why I took this class is because in the last class your lectures were very interesting and I enjoyed hearing about the history.

What we have started doing this past week over Germany would have been good for the whole semester, because the lecture had little side stories about the big picture and we also analyzed a document.