Chair, C.H. Sandage School of Business
Professor of Business Administration
Sam Walton Fellow
Graceland University, 1 University Place, Lamoni, IA 50140
Jeffery W. McElroy, Ed.D.
Summary Self-Assessment of Teaching
Overall the IDEAs, IOTA and my own student evaluations of my courses are quite positive. On a personal level, students rank me as an excellent teacher and include comments like “excellent teacher”, “amazing instructor”, “He is so positive and I love hearing his real life experiences”, and “excellent professor who really cares”. The IDEAs, IOTA, and student evaluations also demonstrate that students like my classes with comments such as “One of the best courses offered at Graceland”, “very well laid out and well organized”, “first class I have taken with him and I loved it”, “I love taking his classes”, and “great class by a great teacher”. The student evaluations illustrate that
I have a pretty good mix of teaching methods and that they appreciate my effort to teach classes in a caring, fun, and well organized manner.
I believe that everyone should work to continually improve. I get ideas from the education department to stay up to speed on the latest teaching techniques and incorporate them in my classes. I developed my own anonymous student evaluation that I ask every class to complete each semester. It asks 5 questions that I believe help me get at what the students found valuable and what they would like to see different. I review each evaluation, summarize the data for each class and implement the reasonable/realistic suggestions. For example, students asked for even more real-world experiential learning projects so I am constantly working to find additional companies to incorporate into class projects.
Overall, I spend much time preparing for each semester and each class individually. It takes an exorbitant amount of time every semester to coordinate guest speakers from key industries and line up companies for the classes to visit and work with on projects; however I believe that this type of experiential learning is key to our students’ success.
For more details, please refer to the IDEAs, IOTA, and Class Evaluations below.
IDEA Surveys
IOTA Surveys
Reflection Statement Interpreting IDEAs and IOTA Surveys
Overall the IDEAs and IOTA surveys are quite positive (see individual class IDEA and IOTA buttons to left). In the IDEA surveys, students ranked me as an excellent teacher and progress on objectives was also good. When reviewing the category "Learning on Relevant Objectives", scores continue to improve. I believe I am doing a good job varying my teaching methods and the IDEA ranking for all methods shows this. In reviewing the data, there are areas that I believe can improve. These are addressed specifically in the individual class IDEAs.
Like the IDEA surveys, the IOTA surveys show that students believe I am a good instructor. IOTA surveys have an overall ranking score for each class that ranges from 0 to 5 and my scores average around 4.5 with most exceeding the institution-wide average.
Student comments (see button at left for IDEA comments - IOTA comments are included in IOTA evaluations) are quite encouraging and not only reinforce what the IDEAs and IOTA surveys indicate but many times are actually more positive. Multiple comments mention that I am a good teacher, have real-world experience, am organized, and that students like my classes.
My Own Class Evaluation Surveys
Reflection Statement Interpreting Class Evaluations
Overall the student evaluations for my courses are quite positive (see individual class evaluation buttons to left). I believe in bringing in outside industry-leading guest speakers to ensure that the students receive real-world knowledge. These speakers were mentioned by all classes as a best practice to retain. I incorporate a summary of each class into a real-world final project that is typically team based. This enables students to learn to work as a team and "pull together" everything they've learned for the semester into a practical real-life presentation. The final presentations vary in style from a power point to pecha kucha to videos. Students from all classes list the final as one of their favorite projects. My inclusion of a variety of activities in the classroom including current events, lecture with power points, videos, learning games, simulations, clickers, group activities, open discussion, real-world examples from the instructor, real-life case studies, and instructor furnished food for finals are all listed by students as "what they like best about the class" Class pace and atmosphere are also listed by students as "what they like best".
Many students comment that real-life experiential learning including trips to tour companies, real world applications such as Kaizen, Microsoft Project & simulations, and working with local and Fortune 500 companies to develop and implement real marketing & social media marketing plans are key to their education.
I also ask students "what could be done to improve the class" and work to incorporate these changes when possible. For example, students would like to see more field trips to enhance their experiential learning. I continue to work to increase the budget for this. Students asked for more coverage of specific topics so I now devote more time to these topics. They would also like to see more guest speakers which I work on each semester.
Representative Course Syllabi
Additional Materials: Teaching Effectiveness
Operations Management learning assembly line techniques
Class visits to Vermeer's headquarters to learn about manufacturing
Class visits to Casey's headquarters to learn about warehousing
Class visits to Iowa Energy/Wolves to learn about sport marketing
