The paragraphs listed below represent feedback received from course evaluations at North Carolina State University. Each paragraph represents feedback from an individual student. The choice in quotation represent what's most important to me as an instructor.
I take all the feedback I receive from my students seriously because I want my students to have the best class experience possible. I pay attention to trends in responses and practical suggestions students share to improve my courses.
Critical Analysis of Communication Media
“He made lectures interesting, engaging, and relevant so that students could talk about the material in a way that is relevant to their own personal experience. For the first time, I was able to understand some of the concepts that had been presented to me in all my COM classes. Professor Fennimore made me passionate about my major and concentration.”
“He is very passionate about what he teaches and knows a lot about the subject. He really wants his students to enjoy the class and has lots of ways to make it more engaging.”
“I liked that we had a lot of freedom in what we got to write about. I also liked the use of the weekly forums and the structure of the class as a whole.”
“Professor Fennimore was very kind to every student. He greeted them with a smile and was overall very enthusiastic about the course and the objectives.”
Communication in a Changing World
“Professor Fennimore was nothing but supportive, passionate, respectful, and driven. It made me continue to come to class and want to learn from him. His desire to teach and desire to help students was evident. Some strengths I would say would be knowledgeable, relatable, organized, straight-forward with content and he would always engage us in unique and intriguing ways. Jack did an amazing job with this course. One of my favorite professors. The course was fascinating and relevant to today’s world.”
“The course does exactly what it claims to do, and there was more of an emphasis on personal learning rather than busy work.”
“I like the structure and grading of the course. I enjoyed the flexibility of the weekly discussion posts (multiple prompts to choose from) and that we discussed posts in class. I also liked that there were two options for the final project. I chose to do the paper because I wasn’t feeling creative at the time, but having the option other than the paper made me dread writing the paper less.”
Electronic Media Writing: Theory and Practice
“This is by far one of my most useful classes. It was great how he asked us what we wanted to get out of the course and catered the schedule to what we had interest in.”
“Jack was very open to changing the material to match what we wanted to learn in his class which was awesome. He commonly showed empathy for what we may be going through as students and as young adults in the current American political sphere which definitely made my semester much better.”
“Positive environment with a focus on engagement that many other classes lack. Mr. Fennimore is a consistently supportive professor who emphasizes the exploratory nature of this class as a pre-req for other classes that continue where he leaves off. His expertise and familiarity with the material is evident, and he maintains the socio-cultural awareness that you would expect from someone in his field.”
Game Studies
“I loved how discussion-based this class was. The debates and conversations we had in class made it easy for me to learn the material because it gave me an opportunity to apply what I had learned. The instructor facilitated those conversations very well, making sure everyone got a chance to share their ideas and always leaving enough time for discussions after the lecture and during it.”
“Professor Fennimore is very insightful, intelligent, and relatable in the eyes of his students. He loves video games, as do his students, so the conversations were very fun and interesting because he could easily add to the discussion. A few of my classmates and I would joke around with him and he’d play along and it would be a great time before class started. Learning about how video games are directly connected to society and its movements was something I’ve sort of known, but not at this scale. I’ve always loved playing video games for fun, but now I have a respectable perspective on the industry as a whole thanks to this course.”
“I liked how he always opened it up for discussion and the class loved talking about what questions he presented. Fantastic job because I truly loved this class. I personally liked how we did not feel limited in our video game knowledge. The professor accepted all types of game concepts that we wanted to pick.”
Exploring and Designing Virtual Worlds
“Professor Fennimore was one of the most compassionate professors I’ve had. He’s knowledgable, understanding, and allows for creative thinking and fosters students ideas as part of the class structure. The addition of student elected interests as part of the class model was super resourceful and engaging.”
“Professor Fennimore was really passionate about the course and that made class a lot more interesting. He was really nice and always receptive and open to students. I really really enjoyed this course. It was really interesting and taught me a lot about virtual worlds and about writing and creating worlds.”
“He was very passionate about the topics we discussed and did a great job of engaging us with the materials we were reading/learning about. Very kind and considerate of his students.”
Public Speaking
“Professor Fennimore was very informational; he had a lot of information on every subject imaginable when it came to public speaking. Overall, an incredibly receptive professor and great listener. I can’t recommend Professor Fennimore enough to teach speaking in the future.”
“The professor was very nice and helpful through all assignments. He would give us amazing examples and class work that would help reinforce ideas for our speeches. They were not only helpful but fun as well.”
“Overall, Jack is a really kind person who is passionate about rhetoric and public speaking. He is always willing to help out, which I really appreciated all semester.”
Environmental Ethics
"Initially I thought that I would be doing the minimum, but after learning and participating in discussion posts I found myself researching topics that were not even discussed in the class materials because of pure interest. This course got me interested in climate change and the environment, and I think that all engineers should have to take it!"
"As someone that already understood the unfathomable hugeness of the burden of climate change, I was still in awe by how much more depth there is to the subject beyond the surface of it. Yes, we know it's terrible and there are many factors contributing to it, but the details are revealed upon taking this course."
"While the course overall was beneficial, in the unique setting of distance learning, Mr. Fennimore showed compassion for the unique scenarios I was going through at home and at work, which is always an added benefit of distance learning."
"Amazing course that went above and beyond in inculcating values regarding the environment within me. Very pleased with the structure and flexibility of the course. Loved every module we studied as it enhanced my understanding by providing in-depth insights about environmental ethics in several fields within our communities."