The following are excerpts from end-of-semester evaluations of each of my courses by students.
ENGL 3300
"Ms. Straple was personable and enthusiastic about the material she was explaining. She emphasized student involvement to promote a more conducive and collaborative learning environment."
"The instructor made material that is somewhat boring (to me) much more interesting!"
"The instructor is a really great, effective teacher who could give interesting lectures about the materials. The assignments, specifically the final exam, were a great way to let students work to their strengths and actually have fun with the assignments."
"The use of technology in the classroom deserves special note. I've never experienced a class where technology was so integrated to such a degree, nor have I ever had such a positive experience with said integration. The use of Socrative was innovative, and brought the use of technology into a constructive, instead of subsidiary, position, combining the usually tedious process of taking attendance and reviewing the reading participation into one simple activity. It was also refreshing to not have to relay on mountains of printed short stories and poems, and instead access them freely on e-learning; made the entire process of keeping organized and understanding what was to be read that much more clear."
"This course provided a very in-depth view of the various pieces of British literature. After reading Beowulf several times throughout my academic career, I have never received the level of understanding which Professor Straple was able to address within the text. This idea carried on through the other content in class too; her vast knowledge of the content and time periods is regularly shared to help further understanding."
"Major strengths include open and engaging class discussions, as well as creative assignments that require more thought than just the average literary analysis."
"Professor is extremely good at guiding the discussion in the class, leading the class to important discoveries pertaining to the works studied."
ENGL 1100
"Professor Straple is very passionate about the topic of this course and you could see her passion shine through as she was giving a lecture."
"I feel that a major strength of Ms. Straple is that she is always striving to make sure her students are understanding the work and putting forth effort to complete classroom activities."
"The major strength of this course and the instructor are when it comes to writing. I developed a better understanding how to write strong papers in multiple formats. You can tell that she has a lot of passion behind writing a good paper."
"She covered a lot of literature through the course's main focus, being monster theory. She would always set up discussions for us to talk about what we had just read that got us thinking about the piece(s). The papers and projects assigned were mostly well explained, and she gave us good guidance for the final paper."
"My professor really enjoys what she does, so it makes the class better. She genuinely wants all of us to do well in her class and that's hard to come by."
"Overall a great class, very simple yet easy to understand and learn from the professor. 10/10 would take again."
ENGL 1050
"A very positive environment to be a part of. Very caring and truly cared about students' successes and difficulties."
"Becky was ready for class every single day and she wanted the best for us as she taught. She came to class very prepared everyday and she always helped us, especially when we were struggling with our papers."
"Patient, lenient, social, and very outgoing with the students. Course was very organized and prepared us well."
"Major strengths of my instructor/course was the ability to teach me clearly in a short amount of time. Every time I come into class I learn something new. My instructor did a lot of activities that helped me pass the class and get a good grade."
"My instructor was always prepared for class, showed an exceptional amount of knowledge on the subjects we covered, and she was very patient and understanding while we are all learning new software (ELI Review). She made it clear to us at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester that we could come to her with concerns or questions on any of our assignments or projects. Not only was she concerned with our work inside the classroom, Miss Straple also stressed our own self-care to us, encouraging us to take care of ourselves in order to gain the most out of our academic experience here at WMU."
"Gets things done in class while keeping the students interested in what is happening while having a good time with it. When something wasn't working well for the class she changed how we did things for the better."
"She was a great teacher to have and I learned so much."
"Becky is an awesome professor and this course really helped me in my understanding of writing papers and doing them well (:"
"The major strengths of the instructor was that she made herself very available to her students most of the time, and always answered questions that we had through email or in class. I like how we sometimes had days in class where she would just help us and listen to what we thought without judgment."
"Becky is very clear and organized, which made the material easy to understand. There was a large focus on the process of writing (understanding the genre, gathering material, writing a rough draft, peer review and writing workshops related to the genre, conferences with the instructor over the paper/project, a final draft, and a reflection). I loved that Becky decided to have the class go through each of these steps for each paper/project because it broke down a difficult project into something much more manageable. It also guaranteed that students would spend an appropriate amount of time on the paper/project instead of waiting until the last week before it was due to begin. This process of writing can also be applied to any kind of paper that students will need to write during the rest of their college careers."
"Rebecca was an amazing instructor, and i was really happy that i got the chance to meet her, as well as have her as my instructor for one of my very first college classes. Although i didn't think i was going to like the class at all, she made it enjoyable, and was able to make me feel more confident about my writing."