Overall I get very positive student evals.
Intellectually, I feel that most evals are a waste of time. Lots of stellar faculty get unfairly critical evals for things out of their control. I think students dispatch on fairly superficial things when writing evals. (Some critical evals are very insightful, of course)
But when I get a negative eval it still stings. I wonder if long term I have thick enough skin for teaching.
@bail "It's annoying when he asks students to be quiet" is superficial. It's great that this student isn't bother by people talking, but other students _are_ bothered by it.
"I wish he would make it clear what concept he was describing before he described it" -- useful feedback
I may not always agree with the second one, but often when lecturing I just get excited and start explaining a thing before introducing it. That criticism is a useful reminder to cool my jets.
The first criticism is superficial only because it assumes a lot about why I do a thing.
The second bit of feedback is useful because me _not_ introducing the name of a concept should be a conscious choice.