Benjamin Winter

Reflection on Teaching Feedback (May, 2018)

Over the past four years, I have grown in tremendous ways as a teacher. When I began the Reinert
Center’s Certificate in University Teaching Skills (CUTS) program, in the fall of 2014, I was
lacking in experience but eager to learn. My time spent in this program has bolstered my
confidence and prepared me to embrace my lifelong passion for teaching and learning. As I take a
moment to step back and reflect in this essay, I will focus both on feedback I have received and on
ways I can use that feedback to improve.

One of the prevailing themes in my student evaluations is that I show enthusiasm for Theology.
While passion alone is not enough to guarantee effective teaching, I do see it as foundational for
developing relationships with students, who enter my class with varying levels of engagement and
different experiences encountering religion. I am encouraged to report that, throughout my years
of feedback, enthusiasm is a common thread. One student said, “Ben Winter is an exceptional
professor for this class. His enthusiasm for the subject is infectious, and his comments and notes
on assignments and papers always add something special.”

In that same vein, another positive comment from students is that I take the time to give feedback
and record their progress through daily assignments. I have found that formative assessment is the
best way to keep students on the same page with me, while learning more about their backgrounds
and the unique perspective each brings to the classroom. I have had many students meet with me
during office hours, and some even continue to keep in touch after our course ends. Just the other
day, I had coffee with a student who shared an essay on an author we studied together, and it
encouraged me to see their continued development as an individual and scholar. These sorts of
interactions would not be possible without real dedication to students as people first. Forming
relationships is what allows for the dissemination of knowledge across generations, and my
relationships with students have contributed inestimably to my own personal growth.

All the same, there are many areas in which my teaching could improve. During the mid-term
week of every semester, I create an anonymous and non-graded assessment on Blackboard that
asks students what I am doing right and where I can improve. Through this mechanism, I have
learned to be more clear about discussion questions (e.g. to write example questions on the board
during small group meetings), to provide study guides for examinations, and to vary the amount
of reading assigned based not only on a text’s length, but also on its complexity. I have been able
to implement most of these changes during the semester itself. I can only anticipate that, as I
continue to gain experience in teaching, I will find many more areas where I can better represent
the discipline of Theology to new groups of people.

After I finish teaching a course, I always create a list of ideas I would like to experiment with in
the future. Some of these include: an oral mid-term or final exam, a take-home final exam with
short essays, in-class debates (on topics like moral relativism, the existence of God, and
universalism), a unit that interweaves Theology with film and television, and the option for
students to vote on topics to cover in our syllabus. Completing reflections like these—as well as
this teaching feedback exercise itself—give me optimism that I can continue to succeed as a
teacher. Although interacting with students in the classroom at first seemed daunting, I now look
forward to my time with them and relish the opportunity to ignite passion for life’s biggest
questions.