Summarized Student Evaluations

Summary Figures of Main Evaluation Questions

Selected Student Comments*

• "I took this class in high school and professor Lundebjerg was a far better teacher than the one in high school. Not only does she take her time teaching the material but students can go back and rewatch every lecture. In addition, she always tries to motivate students by giving bonus questions or allows for test corrections to get points back on an exam. Professor Lundebjerg is probably one of the best teachers I have had to date throughout all my schooling. I wish more teachers truly cared about their students doing well in their class and wanting their students to actually learn the topic.This professor is amazing and I highly recommend all students at Tulane to request her. I hope she teachers other classes in the future." - In response to Q7: "Please provide additional comments about your experience in this course." (38/58 responded)

• "Overall, this course helped me understand microeconomics better and the professor was helpful and knowledgeable. She had clear and frequent communication with us, which was helpful in knowing when office hours were, what assignments were coming up, and other helpful information about recent uploads to canvas, elaborations on assignment instructions, and overall classroom news." - In response to Q7: "Please provide additional comments about your experience in this course." (38/58 responded)

• "Professor Lundebjerg is an excellent professor who is an extremly skilled lecturer. She does a great job of breaking down the complex topics covered in micro econ. Professor Lundebjer is also very accommodating to students with accomadations and makes sure to provide help if nessecary. I would highly recommend Professor Lundebjerg to any student looking to take one of her classes." - In response to Q7: "Please provide additional comments about your experience in this course." (38/58 responded)

• "Professor Lundebjerg was very attentive to all her students and extremely supportive during class. She put a lot of effort into all of her lectures and always gave extensive feedback on any work we turned in. She is very committed to her students' success and overall a wonderful professor." - In response to Q7: "Please provide additional comments about your experience in this course." (38/58 responded)

• "The way the material is presented is very organized and explained in a way that I have learned a lot about economics. I did not know anything about econ before this class. I am looking forward to other classes with the professor and I hope she enjoyed teaching us. It was impressive how she managed so many students and incentivized us throughout the semester." - In response to Q9: "Please comment on the strongest aspects of this course." (33/58 responded)

• "This course was very strong in giving us plenty of time and opportunities to improve. I appreciate how all of the materials go together (module readings, homework, in-class assignments, and exams), because it made it very clear that NOTHING was busywork! Every assignment we had felt necessary and useful. I also greatly appreciate how my professor is very accessible and always willing to answer questions without shaming me." - In response to Q9: "Please comment on the strongest aspects of this course." (33/58 responded)

• "Very inclusive teacher." - In response to Q9: "Please comment on the strongest aspects of this course." (33/58 responded)

• "The material was explained well and she really cares about her students learning." - In response to Q9: "Please comment on the strongest aspects of this course." (33/58 responded)

*Full student evaluation report available upon request. 

Areas for Improvement

Test Difficulty: There were several comments surrounding the variability of difficulty of the exams. 

This was by far my biggest struggle with this class. It was the first time I taught the class AND the first time I have taught freshmen students, so I struggled with gauging how difficult or easy to make the exam. I have known this content for a long time, so it was hard to write test questions that were adequately challenging without being too hard. Another challenge I faced was understanding the type of language and words that would be easy for freshmen to understand versus how I typically write and speak - as there were several instances where I used a word that I then had to define for students. For my second midterm and my final, I was able to get a mentor in the department to look over my exam to ensure it wasn't too difficult, which I think helped. Moving forward, I think I will start to bake in more lower-stakes assessments to "test" the difficulty of questions prior to the exam so that I have a better grasp at how easy/challenging the exam is before the students actually take it. 

Active Learning Opportunities: There were some comments surrounding the format of the lecture as well as the nature of the daily in-class assignments.

This class took place three times a week from 9am - 9:50 am. Almost every class period started out with announcements about upcoming assignments, then included about 30 - 40 minutes of lecture including hand-written notes and class discussion, and then the class ended with a written in-class assignment that involved answering questions based on the material covered during the lecture. These assignments were low-stakes - if the student turned it in, they got full points, but it did count for 20% of their points overall. If a student needed to miss a class, they had to email me by noon on the day that they missed, and they would have about a day and a half to make-up the assignment based off of the lecture recordings I posted. There were several purposes behind these assignments: 1) incentivize class attendance, 2) encourage focused attention on the material being presented since they would need to know it for the assignment, and 3) provide a low-stakes assessment of their grasp on the material. I think these worked well - but there were some challenges, for example: students only showing up the last 20 minutes of class to do the in-class assignment and students not having enough time to actually finish the assignment before the class period was over. There wasn't really an issue with students not trying hard on the assignment, which was great - it was more-so that the assignment was meant to only take 5 minutes, but students would need 10-15 minutes to actually complete it. Further, while I did pause and ask multiple questions of the class during the core lecture time, it could get a bit monotonous and was not using as much active learning as it should. I think next time I may try using clicker questions instead as a way to break up the lecture and still incentivize paying attention in class and attending. I also think there is room to have some class periods that have no lecture but instead an activity with a baked in reflection component so that the students understand the application of the activity to the course content. 

Application Projects/Homework/Amount of Work: There were some comments about there being too much work, or the topics feeling disjointed from the lecture to the homework, or how the expectations for projects were set. 

For every module (12 total), students were required to: 1) read and answer the associated questions in the online textbook and 2) complete a written homework assignment. The readings and their associated questions were graded based on completeness, not accuracy, as the purpose was for them to practice the material. The homeworks were graded about 70% on effort/completeness, and 30% on accuracy - and again, offered a chance for students to practice the material but not loose too many points if they missed some of the questions. Twice a semester, there were "Application Projects," which were longer problem sets and more formal write ups that dealt with real-world Wall Street Journal articles, and how the concepts we learned in class applied to what they read in the news. These projects could be done with a partner, and were graded about 50% on accuracy and 50% on effort/completion. One thing I learned during these projects is that sometimes, students are not very good at understanding how to check a rubric - as I made a rubric that showed exactly how one could score well, explained it to them in class, and reminded them about the rubric each time I reminded them about the assignment - and yet, there were still students who did poorly on the project because of not following the instructions or the rubric. Their performance mostly improved by the second application project, but I do struggle with how I could have made the expectations clearer - outside of maybe puting more instructions about how they should answer the questions. 

I think another struggle with these comments that I had is that I did have a very specific purpose for each of the assignments - but it maybe got lost on the students, which shows I need to be clearer when presenting the assignments. I think also, while I did tie the material together across different modules, I think pacing and organization of the course content can be improved, which I do think is just a function of teaching the course a few more times. I did follow roughly the same pacing as my mentor in the department, used the same textbook as she did, and covered the same content - but I do think I need to find more of a balance between creating all of my own materials (which is what I did) and using more of the textbook materials so it doesn't feel so disjointed between the two.