End of Year Feedback Summer 2024

I was very pleased to see the high level of student satisfaction with the module, with all the scores for feedback organisation, support, level of challenge, inclusivity and overall satisfaction being either 4.4 or 4.5 out of 5. There were also some very positive remarks in the qualitative feedback boxes: ‘The quality of seminars throughout the year has been exceptional’; ‘The discussions in seminars have consistently been helpful, interesting and informative and have allowed for a deeper and better understanding of the topic’; ‘Lectures have been really helpful for providing context for the period’; ‘Mark Knights has been very helpful with feedback’; ‘The emphasis on primary sources as seminar reading material has made me more confident using them as the basis for my essays, and engaging with primary material generally’. Most of you thought the module did not need significant change. Two of you thought I could make slightly more of the link between lecture and seminar, so I will bear that in mind for next year.

Interim Feedback January 2024 for the year 2023-4

I am really pleased that you are all enjoying the module so much. You wrote lots of nice comments about the quality, inclusivity and utility of the lectures and seminars and I was pleased to read that so many of you get a lot from analysing the primary sources in class. The scores you gave were all at 4.6/5 apart from feedback (4.4) and welcoming (4.8). Most of you did not have suggestions for improvement but one was to use PDFs rather than word documents - I will discuss that with you in class.

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Response to end of year feedback on Hi2D2 Summer 2023

Thank you for your feedback on the module. I was delighted to see that you gave a score of 4.5/5 or above to all of the questions on the feedback form, and made many very positive comments about how much you had enjoyed the module. I noted how many of you enjoyed the seminar discussions of primary sources and the media round-ups at the start of seminars. You were generally very satisfied with the module and had relatively few suggestions about how to improve it, though I noted that more discussion of secondary material might be one area to focus on.

Interim Feedback January 2023 for the year 2022-3

Thank you for your very positive feedback. There were 14 responses which suggested a high level of satisfaction. You thought the module was inclusive, welcoming, pitched at the right level and interesting! The lowest score you gave was 4.0/5 on feedback, though that might have been because you had not yet had the tabula assessment feedback at the time you completed the module feedback!. You said that you liked the lectures and gained a lot from the seminars - particularly reading the primary sources, which you found engaging and 'fun to discuss'. You liked hearing others' perspectives. You also like the media roundups we do at the start of the seminars. In terms of suggestions: one of you suggested that the primary sources might be edited to make the early modern prose more easily understandable (not easily done, since it would often mean paraphrasing, but I will have a look through to see what might be possible) and another person noted that not all the seminar questions were covered each time - I try to prioritise some but if there are particular questions you want to discuss then do please raise them in the class.

Interim Feedback 21-22

Only 8 of you completed the feedback, so I am hoping that this suggests a relative contentment with the module! Those of you who did fill it in thought the module is indeed going well. You like the discussion of sources and relating the past to the present; you thought feedback was helpful; that the module was well-organised and offered an appropriate level of challenge, as well as being inclusive and welcoming. There were some helpful suggestions: one was for some specific questions about the sources that you could prepare in advance; another was for something on the perspective of the colonised; and a third to connect seminar sources and lectures a little more. I will try to incorporate some of these in the future, both this term where feasible and in the future design of the module.

End of year Feedback 2021-2

The module had a 4.7 satisfaction rating and students made the following comments about why they enjoyed it:

'The professor’s willingness to help at all times. Also, how easy it was to understand concepts and topics because of the professor’s brilliant efficiency in delivering and communicating'; 'Looking at both primary and secondary sources and the group discussion about them during the seminar'; 'The discussion around how to explore corruption as a concept and demonstrating how tightly woven it is in Britain's development to modernity really helped me think about how to think about historical development and the various themes around it'; ' everything was extremely good.'

Mid-year feedback Jan 2021

Very few of you - just three! - completed the feedback forms, so I have very little useful data. I will discuss how you think the module is going in the seminars in week 1 of term 2.

End-of-year Feedback HI2D2

Thank you for your feedback which is especially useful, given that this is the first time the module has run.

I am very pleased to see that you really enjoyed the module. Although only 50% of you returned the survey, the overall satisfaction with the teaching was high (4.7/5). You all either agreed or strongly agreed that the module was delivered in an engaging way; that feedback enhanced your learning; that it was well organised; and that you had good support. Some of your comments were very encouraging, praising the teaching, and I was particularly pleased that several of you picked out improved confidence in handling primary sources. One suggestion was to incorporate more secondary literature in seminar discussion and I will take that on board for the future.

HI2D2 Interim Module Feedback, January 2019

Thanks to all of you who completed the online feedback which is particularly valuable as this is the first year the module has run. I was very pleased that 100% of you agree or strongly agree that a) it is delivered in an engaging way b) that it is well-organised c) that it has an appropriate level of intellectual challenge and d) that appropriate support is available. 70% thought that feedback enhanced learning. From your comments it seems that you like the close engagement with sources and that you particularly like the seminars. Suggestions included recapping lectures in the class (which I felt less necessary, now that lectures on available via Moodle) and more discussion of the essay questions (I will try to do more of that, though you should also feel free to come and talk about essays with me in my office hours). One person suggested more of an institutional approach – I hope the East India Company has been useful in that respect but I will think of ways to incorporate more of this