Course Feedback from Students

I teach a class at CSULA.  One of my students took the letter from this sign and gave it to me for my collection (initials).

I am kidding, of course.

I should only hope to inspire such levels of vandalism from my students.

I am kidding, of course.

Here is what they said:

Professor Acuna demonstrates a genuine interest in teaching.  She is extremely knowledgeable and is extremely capable of transferring that information.  She is approachable and truly cares about her students.  I am honored to have had her as my instructor!

I have been at CSULA for 7 years and Ms. Acuna is one of my top 5 teachers.  Please hire her on staff.  We need more professors like her.  Thank you!  Learned soo much!

Professor was very knowledgeable in the subject matter and she was very prepared for the course.  Excellent class.

Professor Alex is wonderful & very knowledgeable in the mental health field.  I feel blessed to have had her as a teacher because of what I learned regarding the social work process.

Thank you for being original. I enjoyed and learned a great deal in your class.

Great lecturer and information provided during class.

Best teacher I've had all 3 years - authentic, engaging, intelligent.  (3 hearts) her.

Dr. Acuna (sic) is very approachable & open to students & their feedback.  She's very knowledgeable and eager to share her wisdom with us.

Alex is an awesome professor.  She's got great knowledge & practical experience to share with students.  I feel lucky to have her for one of my required elective courses before I graduate.

Great class!  I really enjoyed it!

Truly loved your class.  Learned a lot of intervention and skills from you.  I will never forget your class.  You are one of the professors that I will always remember.

Wonderful professor.  Loved the stories for examples.  Open & real professor.

The almost Dr. Acuna is amazing - dynamic, outgoing, passionate.  A huge, positive addition to the Department Staff.  Thank you!

Cooool class.

I'm jealous you aren't teaching my capstone.

And because you can't win them all over, even if you are Bill Clinton...

Alex, I expected more from this class content to focus on the Recovery model.  There were several classes that lacked structure and cohesiveness.  Overall good energy.  Too much of your examples focused on school setting.  The assignments were irrelevant and not well explained.

I really enjoyed this course and look forward to Children, Youth, Women & Family Capstone class.  I feel that the directions for some of the assignments were unclear and could have been more detailed, especially the grading standards.

The assignments were changed throughout the quarter, it was confusing.  The class structure appears to be disorganized at times.

This one was written to me in the 3rd person - even though I am the only person who gets to read these.  This proves you cannot win for losing.  I talked about the assignment every class period for 5 weeks.  I gave an entire class lecture about empowerment, using your voice and exercising your vote (core concept in the Empowerment Model) - I had an anonymous suggestion box (I passed out index cards on week 5 to solicit feedback from students), I made my cell phone and email available to the class.  Only one person asked to meet for office hours.  But here is what he or she said:

This was a class about mental health and recovery, yet she spent very limited time reviewing and teaching this model in a concrete or theoretical way.  She was overly invested in teaching the social work process, but this information we repeatedly received in our foundational year.  Please revise your teaching model to fit the purpose of the class.  If you are confused about what to focus on, ask the class for feedback.  Your agenda may be very divergent from ours.