This was a brand new course for me.  I was very concerned about how the student feedback would look.  The first three weeks of the course, my teaching partner, Professor Lipson, did practically all the instruction.  I was finishing the endless summer of the ELED Ncate Portfolio and was fast approaching the deadline.  I was grateful to Marge.  Nevertheless, some things slipped through the cracks and I was constantly backtracking across the remaining weeks to pick up loose ends:  I didn't know the case studies, I hadn't heard the explanation of the heruistic that guided the course (interactive teaching), I didn't have copies of the individual assignments, and I inherited what was essentially, her course.  We are different teachers.  We organize our instruction differently.  I was able to teach to her model but it was not a natural stretch for me.  I pace more slowly and carefully open new information to the student.  Presenting them with 50+ pages of technical reading a week, requiring weekly reaction  papers, not having enough time to sort the content was alien to my preferred mode of instruction.  So this course was a stretch. 

In addition, the course was new this academic year.  The turf issues werevibrant with EdEl 56.  The students bore the brunt of this.  None of the four professors involved moved to clarify reduncancy and downright confusion that exists between the two offerings even as we knew it existed.  We are scheduled to clarify this before next Fall.  The students paid the price this spring.  All in all, a complicated situation within which to begin a new assignment. 

The students' chafing is seen in the ratings for "assignments" and "general estimate of the course."  The SD shows considerable variability in the rankings across students.  I felt relieved in their "estimate of the teacher" (anything below 4.0 makes me cringe), and in the area of "objectives clarified by instructor. "  The latter category for me is always a challenge: I am a concrete random.  I start clear, and then wander.  Here, evidently, I reined that in, probably because of the collaboration.