Post Course Evaluations

The JUA is complete (except for grades which will come out at the end of the term), and I would like to take a moment to pull together the measurable results from the trip.

Although there are many intangibles that go into the experience (and we love hearing your stories and thoughts about it) I'd also like to focus on some things we can measure.

We conducted a pre and post course survey of your expectations and actual thoughts on the program. The pre-course survey is here, and the tabulated results from both follows. I've ranked the top vote getters rather than list percentages because we had a different number of people respond to both surveys.
In the pre-course survey you can see that expectations had fun and educational heading the list while exciting and interactive are also among the top five. After the program notably tiring shows up in the #4 slot (in the pre-course survey it was way on the bottom with only 4% of votes). I like that exciting is replaced by memorable: as the we prepare for something it's exciting and after the fact we remember the intense three days.

We also asked students to assess their research skills because an important part of the JUA is conducting research from primary sources. In the pre-course survey 75% of students reported that they used good research tactics 'half to most of the time.' While in the post-course survey that number increased to 88%. Very nice to see.

Students left very good feedback in both the things to do differently category as well as things to keep the same. In general folks liked the hands on, group work with active learning outside the classroom. On the other side you wanted to complete the final product before the holiday break and stay in a nicer hotel.

In addition to your work on the project over 2000 people have been engaged with the JUA. The map and statistics at the top of this post represent the visitors to just this blog alone, many more visitors viewed each group's blog, asking questions and reading your posts.

Thank you for your feedback and also demonstrating that the JUA is a meaningful experience.