My Worst Student Ratings Ever

Gauge with needle pointing to "very bad," indicating poor student evaluations
3D illustration of a conceptual gauge with needle pointing to very bad scoring.
A year ago I received the worst student ratings of instruction (SRIs) in my 28 years of teaching. On the Likert scale I am normally between 4 and 5 for quality of instructor and quality of the course. Last year, however, my fall term ratings for my sophomore cell biology course were below 3. Below 3! When I read that, I thought I was going to faint. All the effort and time I put into designing a quality learning experience for students went unappreciated. I felt nauseous.

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