Over the mid term exam period I set up a survey in my moodle course for advanced students using the excellent third party module feedback. In the survey I asked students to rate the various activities we had done during the semester as well as a couple of other questions to get a feeling for how the students liked my class. I’ve made a couple of adjustments for the second half of the semester.

What I found most interesting was the responses related to the activities we did during the semester. Students consistently ranked activities I made myself much higher than ones from teacher resource books. I’ve included screenshots (in the extended entry) of the survey results where I’ve highlighted in yellow the activities I did myself.

Do I think this means I make better materials than can purchased commercially? Yes and No. I make better materials for my teaching style and my students. With the materials I develop they are 100% tailored to my class and students. Many of the materials I created are available on this blog if you do a search for them. However with commercial materials they are designed to please everyone and quite often end up being less than excellent but better than okay.

Looking at the survey results makes me want to create more personalized material for my students but the amount of time necessary to make quality materials is alot and thus I am required to use my own material to mostly supplement. Any thoughts or comments? What is your experience with personally created material vs commercial?

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